HarryHoaxing
by busilak at salaula
Summary: Duel Death Eaters? Check. Defeat Dark Lords? Been there, done that. Pretend to be Chief Swan's daughter in some backwater town and catch the eye of its resident, blood-sucking vampires? Sure, no prob-wait, WHAT? EC/HP
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: Not mine.

*facepalms* Apparently, I've jumped on the HP/Twilight crossovers bandwagon. It's all your fault, for creating such wonderful stories in this fandom. Now I'm addicted to them. How could you, people? :)

This would probably, might be, probably be an Edward/Harry slash (I could keep it het too, if you like). A bit of...touching and swearing. It's my take on the 'harry-disguises-himself-as-some-other-person' trope. Sori if der r eny grammatical aberrations and ms. speling.

Summary: Duel Death Eaters? Check. Defeat Dark Lords? Done that. Pose as Chief Swan's daughter in some backwater town and catch the eye of its resident, blood-sucking vampire? Sure, no prob-wait, WHAT?

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><p>Chapter 1: A Swipe of Lipstick<p>

_Dear Hermione, remember when you asked if my plans could get any stupider? Well, they just did. And I reckon that you're not gonna like it._

Bloody hell. This must be his Most Moronic Idea Yet.

Considering his fair share of Most Moronic Ideas, this topped the cake. It did not only top the cake, it sprinkled Canary Creams at its icinged-edges. He didn't even know what proverbial cake he was talking about, but it made him quite famished. Starving, actually. He could eat a whole horse and a blast-ended skrewt or two, even though both were not that appetizing.

It was even affecting his thought process, for he forgot to address his current dilemma.

Namely: his Most Moronic Idea Yet. He added the word 'yet' because he was sure that he could (and would) think of worse ideas still.

Harry surveyed himself in the mirror closely, relieved that he was finally able to mention his name in his mental rant. Too much use of the third person singular pronoun "he" was rather annoying.

He paused, wondering where that thought came from. Why should the use of the third person limited point of view bother him so much?

Oh, right. Because he was using it in his own thoughts.

"Merlin, Voldy must have addled my brains when he attacked me as a kid," he muttered, running his hand through his medium-length brown hair.

He blinked, watching the naked young girl in the mirror blink back.

"Not bad," he said to his reflection. "I'd probably 'tap that' if it isn't me."

The girl in the mirror grimaced, apparently offended by his crudeness.

"Suck it up." American slang was something he needed practice in; he was utterly rubbish at it. It was baffling, similar to how Americans driving on the wrong side of the road confuzzling the heck out of him.

The voice could use a little help, though. He needed to sound like an American born and bred, not a Brit who was barely out of puberty. More than that, he had to sound like a girl. An American girl. A teenage American girl.

His friends told him that that was a volatile mix. He forgot to ask if that was a good thing or a bad thing.

"Hello," he said. "How'd you do? I'm your average American teenage girl. Pleased to meet ya."

Now that was so much better.

The girl in the mirror - his _reflection_, he corrected himself - cocked an eyebrow in disagreement. He blew a raspberry at her.

Randomly, he wondered if he was pretty. He couldn't tell.

Almond-shaped brown eyes stared at him from a pale, heart-shaped face. His mouth was a touch too wide and unproportional to the rest of his features, but it could curl into such disarming smiles. The tone color of his skin freaked him out - it made him think of the Hogwarts ghosts. If he was a romantic he would say that he was chocolate-eyed and ivory-skinned but 'brown' and 'pasty' were apt descriptions for now. Brown hair fell pass his shoulders, and moved with every toss of his head. He wasn't accustomed to wearing his hair that long, and its weight felt odd.

The girl's frame was slender and somehow fragile, as if she'd tripped on bare air if given the chance. His new body didn't seem to be trained in any kind of sport or discipline. He felt annoyingly weak. She wasn't tall, but she was a good deal taller than Harry was – which vexed him a lot and made him curse his crappy childhood, Dursleys, and Aunt Marge's dogs (who always ate his share of food when Uncle Vernon's sister came to visit). But on the plus side, Harry was glad that his bust wasn't that large. He didn't think that he could walk straight without falling flat on his arse if his knockers were the size of watermelons - or the size of Aunt Marge when he 'blew her up' at the tender age of thirteen. Ah, that was one of his best Dursley memories, even though he was scared as hell and more focused on not pissing his pants than appreciating it at that time.

The lack of…dangling equipment was horribly disconcerting. No, it was downright horrifying. Was _this_ what all girls have between their legs?

Morbid curiosity compelled him to… poke at it. But he retracted his hand quickly, uncomfortable with how sensitive he was. Merlin, he felt like a voyeur. He was a perverted, sexual, pedophilic deviant of the highest order. Sirius would have been so proud of him.

All in all, his female form was no supermodel, but he was no pushover either. He had the kind of face that would blend readily in any crowd. Nice, but not really that remarkable - which was exactly what he was gearing for.

The wizard picked up a bra and slipped it on. The mechanism of it seemed easy enough. He fumbled at the latch on his back, cursing himself for not asking the lady at the lingerie store if there was a bra that opened at the front. Still, he couldn't blame himself for not asking. The lady kept giggling all throughout their transaction. She must've thought that he had a weird hobby or something, for he came to the store as a boy.

The bra was a bit too small for him. The gartered edges dug in his skin uncomfortably. He should've come to the store in his female form. How was he to know that the blasted scraps of lace came in _cups _and _sizes_, for Morgana's sake?

He slipped on the panties next. The soft silk caressed his…crotch. He didn't like it. It made him feel…things, but wearing boxers or briefs would've been weird (especially if he happened to wear a skirt and there was a convenient wind nearby). He couldn't go commando either – he would never, ever consider that as an option.

He picked up the pair of jeans on his bed. No way in hell would he wear a skirt. The undergarments were torture enough, thank you very much. Contrary to popular belief, he wasn't a masochist.

From a pile of neatly-folded clothes, he selected a plain, sleeveless white blouse. He pulled it over his head, too lazy to undo the buttons and redo them all over again.

The boy-turned-girl stepped back and inspected his now-clothed new self. He didn't believe that he had committed any unspeakable fashion crime with his get-up. After all, it was just jeans and a blouse, right?

His face was still so pale, though. Should he try some make-up on?

Aside from the lingerie, he had stopped over a shop to buy some beauty products. They came in all sorts of shapes and sizes – some of which eerily looked like torture devices. He had grabbed only what he had deemed safe for his health to use. It wasn't a whole lot.

Attempts at make-up met a horrible end and a ruined blouse. Annoyed, he threw the things inside a handbag that seemed to have no other purpose than to look cute. He changed his top and decided to swipe on a tiny amount of lipstick. The wet feel and strawberry scent of it made him want to lick his lips, but he found out that it was not as delicious as it smelled.

He briefly contemplated the bottle of perfume on his boudoir. Fleur had slipped it in his pocket with a wink, a blush, and a whisper of "just 'een case, 'arry! 'Ooze 'eet well!" when they last saw each other. He was rather wary of it (did Fleur mean 'use' or 'ooze'? Was the perfume full of Veela voodoo?), but in the end decided that just a few sprays wouldn't hurt. It smelled nice, and reminded him of the flowers he used to tend in Aunt Petunia's garden. He couldn't read the label, but reckoned that it wasn't important. Who in the world read labels, anyway?

He combed his hair, straightened his blouse and looked at his reflection again.

An American teenage girl peered right back. Perfect.

Step one of his Most Moronic Idea Yet had been completed.

But he was still hungry.

"Sweetie, are you ready now?" a voice asked from downstairs, easily heard because his bedroom door was open.

"Coming, uh-Mom!" he yelled right back, wondering if it was normal behavior for mothers to call their teenaged daughters all sorts of nicknames as if they were still in nursery school. Aunt Petunia did it all the time with Dudley, calling him 'Dudley-poo' or 'Duddikins' well until his teenaged years. It mortified the heck out of Dudley, but provided Harry with countless hours of entertainment (and a few broken ribs when he couldn't hold in his laughter). He couldn't ask his own mother if she would have called him 'Harry-kins" too, because she was, well – gone.

They were all gone.

Shaking himself out of his thoughts, he ran his eye around the room. He hoped that he didn't forget anything – oh, the water bottle. He needed to keep it in hand all the time.

The 'girl' slung 'her' satchel on 'her' shoulder, barely noticing the nametag that proclaimed 'her' alleged identity and destination.

BELLA SWAN, FORKS, WASHINGTON.

_Dear Hermione, I'd never given much thought to how I would die – though I'd had reason enough in the last few months – but even if I had, I would not have imagined it like this. Was that thought too morbid? Not for me - it rather sounded like a start of those clichéd romance novels you used to like. You know, those books with the brooding, mysterious heroes, the boring, plain heroines, the angsty 'you're much too good for a monster like me,' and the much-expected 'and they lived happily ever after?' Haha, please don't send a castration curse on your next letter. I'm fond of my man-bits and would prefer them up and running. I'm sure the ladies would be grateful for that, too._

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><p>Was that okay? My funny bone needs tickling and my writing skills are kinda rusty, so sorry for the awkwardness of anything. Thanks for reading and please review!<p> 


	2. A Touch of Mascara

Disclaimer: not mine

Aww...did you know how ridiculously happy i was, i am (and hopefully, i will be) when i saw my inbox flooded with your reviews, faves, and alerts. So once again, thank you, thank you! Thanks to _webpixie_ for being the first to review and thanks too to _Amime Zaki_ for letting me use the term 'Not-Bella' to refer to Harry, which was coined in a review.

I try to reply to every review, even though I oftentimes give away something crucial. Me and my big mouth! haha.

You raised such wonderful questions, especially: Why is Harry pretending to be Bella? Where is Bella? Gone? Dead? Or is she non-existent in the first place? Oops, I probably said too much!

Well, here's the next chapter. I uploaded this instead of studying and am in a bit of a hurry, so I'll just come back to see if there are any corrections to be done, ok? A bit of swearing, some ooc (I like my Harry a lil' crazy). I hope you like it!

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><p>Chapter 2: A Touch of Mascara<p>

The drive to the airport was uncomfortably awkward. Harry didn't know what to say, and apparently, Bella's mom - Renée did not know either.

"Bella," she said. It took a moment to register that she was calling him. "You don't have to do this."

Not-Bella stared at her blankly. Thankfully, his 'mother' didn't appear to notice and took his silence as a chance to further elaborate.

"Go to Forks, I mean. Phil wouldn't mind it if you tag along with us."

Tag-along with a newly-wed couple in the passionate throes of their first honeymoon? No, thank you. He preferred to keep his sanity and virgin eyes intact.

From the few notes that Bella – the original one – had left in her room, he learned that her mother Renée had married some minor league baseball player just a while back. Phil wasn't her real father; some bloke in a little-known town was. They were divorced since Bella was still a baby.

"It's okay, Mu-Mom." The word felt strange falling from his lips. "I really don't mind."

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><p>Renée frowned and swerved to avoid an overtaking vehicle. Bella acted downright odd these days. She couldn't remember when it started, but she began to notice it shortly after her daughter announced, of all things, a desire to move to Forks.<p>

She hadn't protested, of course. Her daughter was old enough to make her own decisions. It made her realize how grown up Bella was.

How long had it been since her little girl tugged at her mother's skirt and demanded to be picked up? Was it really ten years ago when Renée had accompanied her to her first dance lesson? Or her first day of school?

Where had that little girl gone and who was this 'middle-aged' person trapped in a teenager's body sitting on the passenger seat? For a moment, the mother longed for the days when her child depended on her.

That wasn't completely true, she supposed. Bella had always been independent and willful. The older woman was aware of what Bella thought of her: a slightly spaced-out, forgetful person in need of constant TLC. Renée was inwardly amused at her daughter's assumption, but she allowed the teenager to continue her pampering. It made the teenager happy to take care of her mother – who was she to begrudge that?

But still: Renée worried about her.

"Don't worry, Mom. I'll keep in touch," Bella said, unwittingly echoing her thoughts.

Renée glanced sharply at the direction of the passenger seat. The teenager had developed such a fine attunement to her thoughts. She would've chalked it up to the girl's maturity, but the way Bella seemed to predict her next words or actions bemused her. Or had Bella always known how to do that and she only noticed it just now?

If she didn't know better, she would've thought that Bella was reading her mind!

That notion surprised a laugh out of her.

"I'm not," Bella mumbled, fiddling with the strap of her seatbelt.

"Not what, dear?"

"Never mind – Mom."

Renée shook her head. Perhaps she was as silly as Bella thought she was?

Reading minds – ha! What a silly idea! Next thing she knew, she was going to think that vampires and witches were real!

The only real woman in the car didn't notice her companion wince guiltily.

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><p>"Tell Charlie I said hi."<p>

"I will."

"I'll see you soon. You can come home whenever you want – I'll come back as soon as you need me."

Harry rather thought that Renée looked like she swallowed a bogey-flavored Bertie Bott's Every Flavored Bean as she made the promise. She must've been looking forward to the trip with Phil, then. Phil was a nice chap. He'd be a good companion for Bella's mother.

He heaved a sigh of relief when she left. He didn't think that he could stand another day of charade under Renée's rapidly growing suspicions. She was the person who knew Bella inside and out – her habits, likes, dislikes - practically her whole personality.

Bella's mother might come of as a flighty person but she was more than what she appeared. Granted, she still had that odd childlike innocence in her demeanor. However, Renée Dwyer was not dumb. She was bound to notice Bella's peculiar behavior.

The wizard was bubbling in glee as he boarded the plane. He had never ridden one of those before. Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon would rather enforce Dudley on a diet than take their freaky nephew on their pleasure trips.

Was riding on an airplane as exciting as soaring through the skies on a broomstick? He missed his Firebolt terribly much. It wasn't as if he could whip it out of his luggage and ride it in front of the muggles' disbelieving eyes. He would call the attention of the Ministry of Magic here - if ever this place had one.

An airplane was the next best thing, wasn't it?

A bored-stiff Harry arrived in Seattle four hours later. His excitement had worn off during the first hour, when all he did was evade the groping hands of the person seated next to him. He hadn't foreseen the danger of perverts now that he was a girl. Maybe he should purchase a good pepper spray? He couldn't _crucio_ the arse off of every guy who dared fondle him, tempting as the thought was.

He would choose broomsticks over airplanes any day.

Another plane and another hour later, the boy (well, technically it was the plane) landed in Port Angeles. It was raining, which made him smile a bit wistfully. The skies of London were a tad too...wet, too.

He didn't mind the rain, for it reminded him of things he thought he had forgotten a long time ago.

Harry was glad that there were only a few people at the small airport. It made the search for Charlie Swan easier.

Charlie Swan was waiting outside. Harry stopped and stared at Bella's father, recognizing him from the pictures Bella had of him. Somehow, he didn't fit the image Harry had formed of him in his mind. He wasn't short, bald, or pot-bellied. In fact, he looked rather normal, if not for his uniform or the police cruiser he was currently leaning on. Where was the doughnut? The dopey expression? The handle-bar moustache? Bugs Bunny and all the others totally lied to him!

Not-Bella was so incensed at their deceit that he stumbled on his way to the vehicle. Inwardly, he frowned. He wasn't this clumsy before. Could this be the result of exhaustion from a five-hour flight, or was it something else?

"It's good to see you, Bells," Charlie said as he steadied him-her-whatever. Harry filed the nickname into his memory.

"You haven't changed much. How's Renée?"

"Re-Mom's all right. Pleasure to see you, sir - Dad."

Harry winced. That was a much too formal greeting from a daughter, right?

"Go on. Hop on in. I'll take care of the bags."

With a murmur of 'thanks,' Harry boarded the car and estimated how long the drive would be. He gripped his water canteen tightly, unwilling to let it go. If he was lucky, the drive would take no more than an hour.

"I found a good car for you, really cheap," Charlie said as soon as he fastened his seatbelt.

Oh, bugger. Did Bella ask for a car as a 'homecoming gift?' He didn't know how to drive, for Morgana's sake. He could make magic do the driving for him, couldn't he?

Harry uncapped his canteen and took a gulp of his drink, trying to stall for time.

"Er - what kind of car?" That seemed safe enough to ask.

"A Chevy."

What in Godric's name was a Chevy?

"How - how nice. Where did you find it?"

"Do you remember Billy Black down at La Push?"

"No."

That was probably the first truth Harry had ever said in a week. It was quite liberating. Technically, he didn't remember Billy Black so much as knew him, but it was (arguably) the truth.

"He used to go fishing with us during summer. He's in a wheelchair now, so he can't drive anymore. That's why he offered to sell me his truck cheap."

Bella didn't strike him as a 'fishing' person. Walking without tripping was such an impossible task for her; let alone casting a fishing rod without getting entangled in the wires. Or tipping the boat over and making the people in it drown to their watery graves.

"Oh."

"Uh-huh."

"Hmm."

"Er…"

"Oh-okay, then."

Talking to Charlie Swan was like taking care of a blast-ended skrewt – you don't know what to do next. Or what to bloody do in the first place.

Bella's father was a man of a few words. Since Harry was no Gilderoy Lockhart himself (he would rather kiss Malfoy's arse than be compared to that suave, peacock bastard…Helena's knickers, where did that thought come from? Darn you, brain!), he decided to shut up and stare at the scenery outside the car window.

Which consisted of trees, trees, and trees.

Joy.

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><p>Harry knew why Forks was so green.<p>

Once upon a time, Mother Nature was challenged by…by… the All-Powerful God of Something or Another on a drinking match. Since the Good Lady was too polite to turn down an offer of free liquor (it was _free)_, she readily accepted. The God of Something or Another boasted that there was no one who could out drink him, so Mother Nature called him up on it.

She lost.

Annoyed and drunk out of her mind, she staggered home but stopped by Forks to take a piss. The highly esteemed woman then puked out her innards on the poor unsuspecting trees and townspeople. Green was quite becoming on the downtrodden little town, so she decided to keep the color (no way would she ever tell her friend-with-the-too-long-name that she puked on it).

And that was why Forks was so green. The end.

From here on, let it be known that Harry Potter, _the _Boy-Who -Lived (by now, he totally earned that italicized definite article) would make a crappy storyteller.

But if he was going to wax poetic about the Ultimate Greenness of Forks, he would say that Mother Nature (who was an all-righteous, goody-goody two-shoes and not a drunkard at all) had gracefully sat down right at the middle of Forks and made the town her personal sanctuary. Shades of emerald, beryl and jade dripped down from whimsical, ancient trees and pooled over moss-covered rocks and forest floors that were streaked with wind-scattered leaves. Soft sunshine peered through the forest's canopy and created a stark contrast of light and shadow on the surroundings. It was a beautiful world that was both foreign and familiar.

Harry was rather proud of himself. How many literary devices had he used there?

_Dear Luna, I think you'd like Forks. It looks like the place where a Crumple-Horned Snorkack would live. Or those wrackspurts and nargles. You and your (imaginary) friends can have a tea party here. Don't forget to send me an invitation, okay? I can make the crumpets for you._

It took an hour and 1,495 random thoughts before Charlie killed the engine in front of a modest, two-story house.

The Chevy turned out to be a big, old, faded red truck. It didn't look as if it could reach the next block without conking out.

Harry loved it.

"Wicked! Thanks, Dad!"

It reminded him of Sirius' old motorcycle. Or the Weasley's beaten-down Ford Anglia. The wizard wondered if he could get away with making ole' Chevy fly, too.

In light of his daughter's enthusiasm, Charlie clearly didn't know what to say. Maybe Harry should show some more 'daughterly appreciation?'

"I love, love, _love_ it, Daddy-o! It's like, the coolest thing since sliced bread with catsup!"

That was probably a tad too much. He cringed, waiting for the older man's reaction.

"Well, now, you're welcome," Bella's dad said gruffly. His embarrassment was quite obvious in the way he rubbed the back of his reddening neck – the way Harry did sometimes. "I'm glad you like it."

Charlie's flustered response made Not-Bella smile fondly. Mr. Swan was such an endearing man, if a bit rough around the edges.

A raindrop landed on Harry's girlishly long eyelashes. He was immensely glad that he hadn't applied that dratted mascara this time. He would've looked like a bedraggled panda if he had. The raindrop multiplied, and soon, the sky was pouring out its grief onto the world prostrate at its feet.

_I deserve another pat on the back for that excellent use of personification,_ Harry thought as he and Charlie sought shelter from the deluge.

If his stint as a teenage girl didn't work out, he could always be a writer. He'd write about his adventures, be filthy rich, and go live out the rest of his life somewhere in the Bahamas.

The older man handed him the keys and asked him to open the door, snapping him out of his happy thoughts.

Harry paused at the door's threshold and felt so much like an intruder at that moment. It was as if the house recoiled at his presence, recognizing him for who he was not.

Was he really going to do this? One step through that door, the charade would begin. Officially.

He was spared from the indecision when something nudged at his back.

"Bells? I'm not exactly carrying tissue here. Mind letting me in to rest these tired old bones?"

"Oh, of course. Sorry about that, Dad."

The boy felt a little bit guilty letting the old man carry all his bags. Least he could do was open the door, right? He could freak out later, when he was settled in. He had a nervous breakdown with his name on it waiting for him.

The living room of Charlie's house was adjacent to the kitchen. It had a small fireplace over which a row of pictures were displayed. In the first frame, he recognized Bella's parents on their wedding day. A much younger Charlie had his arms around his joyful wife who uncannily resembled her daughter. He stared at the picture, barely able to believe that such a happy couple had been so estranged with each other. Was there a possibility that his own parents would have ended in the same way, if they hadn't died on that fateful Halloween night?

The next photo showed them in a hospital. Renée, with a triumphant grin in her eyes, was holding a newborn in her arms. Obviously, it was Bella. Charlie was looking down fondly at the baby.

The other pictures were of Bella, taken at different ages. In every one of them showed an awkward young girl smiling uncomfortably at the camera.

It was apparent that Charlie still loved his ex-wife deeply. He and the house seemed trapped in the past, waiting for a lover and a wife who will never come back.

It must be very painful.

He felt his earlier levity fading away. Charlie must have been really looking forward to living together with Bella. The wizard's heart lurched in sympathy. Who was he to deprive a father of his daughter's company?

"Bells?"

Bella's father stopped at the foot of the stairs, and looked at him inquisitively. The boy knew what the older man saw: his gawky teenage daughter, home at last. A second chance, and a way to regain all those lost years.

"Coming."

_I'm sorry, Charlie._

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><p>Some lines that Charlie and Renée spoke were shamelessly lifted from the book, as I know you noticed. What they said seemed apt at that time. I included Renée's pov just because. In the book, Bella's parents were so insignificant that they might as well be chopped liver or something. The acute accent on Renée's name keeps pissing me off, though, because it wasn't easily 'typeable.'<p>

QUESTIONS!

1. Should this be slash?

2. Can Meyer's vampires tell if someone is a boy or a girl? You know, if they could smell...semen or menstrual blood? Speaking of, how did Edward impregnate Bella in the fourth book? Shouldn't he be...undead? How come his bodily fluids still work?

Edward might appear in the next chapter. Thanks for reading and please review!


	3. The Trouble with Girlish Empathy

A/N (aka the Rambling Corner)

Disclaimer: Same old, same old.

Hello! Once again, thank you for the reviews, faves and alerts. Have I told you how amazing all of you are?

You probably already know this, but I've got some good news and bad news. Good news is: it's going to be slash. Bad news is: it's going to be slash. So if this offends your delicate sensibilities, please take your leave now, or Look the Other Way.

To reiterate: it's going to be slash. It was almost a unanimous decision. I shouldn't have asked, really. Harry's going to start as a straight guy – and I'm going to enjoy browbeating him until he bends over…you know. For Edward.

So, warnings: language, ooc, eventual slash.

It seems that everyone's favorite soapbox is the illogical (illogicality? illogicness?) propensities of Twilight. You blew me away with all your knowledge and theories about it. So thank you for satisfying my queries.

My dog died, so please excuse Harry's maudlin moments – the slick bastard is channeling my emotions, so there.

Sorry for the long author's note, which you probably skipped over. Not that I blame you. I do that most of the time, too. Please enjoy!

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><p>"<em>Harry."<em>

_Warm, brown eyes. Love. The touch of flame-colored hair. Scent. Belonging._

"_Harry, look at him. Isn't he a dear?"_

_Where…he wanted to ask. What do you want me to see?_

_Warm brown eyes again. Affection. Brown hair. Chocolate-smeared kisses. Fondness. Devotion. Dear one. _

_No._

_Pain. Longing. Regret. Might have…could have. Didn't – didn't…want…_

"_Harry?"_

_Not his dream. _

_Not Harry anymore. _

_Not mine._

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><p>Harry woke up with a sense of displacement. Not in the Freudian sense, of course, but that was a nerd joke that a mere minority would understand. It was a sad state of affairs if one's thought first thing in the morning was a feeble attempt at humor.<p>

The springs in his old mattress creaked in protest as he tossed and turned. The pillows were dreadfully lumpy. The quilt, though faded and ratty, kept the cold away. A quick view outside revealed nothing but fog.

He had never felt this comfortable in months.

Bella's room was in the same state as the rest of the house: unchanged, and stubbornly clinging to memories long gone. The walls were faded blue, and yellow curtains were placed on the window facing the front yard in an attempt to alleviate the gloomy mood. He could hear the rain tapping on the roof, and its staccato rhythm was very soothing. An old rocking chair was tucked away in one corner. Aside from the bed and the wardrobe, the room had a desk and a computer. Renée had practically ordered him (or rather, Bella) to keep in touch – which was well and nice, as soon as figured out how to use the blasted thing.

A tempus charm told him that it was just half past four. Last night he had dreamed of barely anything at all, and the respite from his turbulent dreams was a welcome change for him.

Charlie was still in bed, judging from the stillness of the house. The wizard was grateful that he hadn't checked up on Bella. What would he have done if he found some strange boy sleeping in his precious daughter's bed? Those pistols of his looked…used. Often.

Not-Bella needed to erect wards in the room soon – just to be sure. He didn't particularly want to know how a father would react to a slight on his daughter's virtue. He didn't think that there would be anything left of him in the aftermath.

The wizard was jolted out of his morbid musings (One thousand and one ways on how to kill the wanker in your daughter's room effectively and as messily as possible – a special edition for Police Fathers) when something toppled out of bed. Rising to a sitting position, he wandlessly summoned it.

"Hedwig! Didn't I tell you to stay by my side? Who knows what dust bunnies you might encounter on the floor? They're not very friendly."

Harry absently dusted off the stuffed owl in his arms, feeling a pang of longing for his second-ever friend. The toy wasn't really Hedwig (that would be a tad disturbing), but a trinket he had stumbled upon on his travels. It bore such a startling resemblance to his dear old companion, and he didn't have the heart to leave it alone and abandoned on a remote shelf in a dusty old store.

"I miss you, girl. Them too."

The toy's glassy yellow eyes stared back unblinkingly.

He sighed and plopped down on the mattress. Shite, what had he gotten himself into? In just hours from now, he would attend high school with all of his 'year mates.'

He hadn't been in Muggle school for years. What do kids of his age learn at school, anyway? Would his classmates and teachers think that Bella was intellectually lower than a moron if she couldn't compute beyond long division? Not that he gave a rat's arse about what they thought, but the possibility of soiling another person's reputation didn't sit well with him - especially if he was just borrowing said person's identity. Where was his sense of gratitude if he made Bella look stupid? He should be ashamed of himself. Really.

Not for the first time, Harry cursed his noble, Gryffindor side for chivalrously keeping his promises – even the foolish ones, those that could land him in a lotta' hot water.

Forget Voldie. Why did he have a feeling that High School would be a different type of hell altogether?

* * *

><p>Charlie Swan walked into the kitchen to find it already occupied. Bella was busy stirring something in a large pot. Her hair was shoved messily in a bun and she was wearing her mother's old apron.<p>

For a moment, his mind's eye showed another woman bustling away in the tiny room with the freshly painted yellow cabinets and the new linoleum floor. He saw the apron – which wasn't as old and ratty – tied on the back of the pregnant belly of the only woman he had ever loved.

"Top of the morning to ya, Dad!"

A blink – and the illusion dispelled. The cabinets were faded yellow, the linoleum floor was scuffy, and Bella wasn't Renée.

Eighteen years have passed without him noticing.

He smiled bitterly.

"What's the matter? You look sad, Dad. A sad dad. What made you sad, Dad?"

"Good morning to you too, Bells," he replied flatly.

The girl huffed and crossed her arms. Amused, he noticed that a dipper was still held loosely in one of her hands and it was dripping something on the floor.

"That wasn't a greeting," Bella strode forward and gave him a hug and a kiss on the cheek. "Good morning, Dad."

Embarrassment and surprise warred inside him, followed by an inexplicable rush of fondness that condensed itself painfully in his throat, and clogged up the words he wanted to say.

_I love you, Bells. Thank you for staying with me even if you wouldn't have done it if there was a better choice. I'm sorry that things have turned out this way._

What came out instead was: "You're dripping oil on my uniform."

His daughter stepped back and rolled her eyes. "At least you're not a sad dad anymore, Dad."

He chuckled. "That is getting kinda annoying."

"You don't like fine, sublime, divine rhymes?"

Those didn't really rhyme, but he refused to point it out to her. Doing so would only lengthen that pointless conversation.

"I know you didn't get that cheeky attitude from me. Must be from your mother."

"Okay, go ahead. Blame the other chromosome donor if the offspring is just a bit loopy."

"What's all this?" he asked, belatedly noticing the table laden with food. The teenager even covered the table with a cheery table cloth and placed a vase with some fresh flowers in it at the middle, although he wasn't sure where those had come from.

"I didn't know what you'd like, so I made all of them." She turned towards the stove again. "Sit down and have a bite. You must be starving."

Charlie pulled a chair, sat down, and took the nearest dish. He eyed it warily. It smelled nice and looked nice, but if it was like any one of Renée's infernal concoctions...

"Uncle Fred's not gonna bite you. Coupla it up with a bit of Johnnie Rutter, and it's aw Robin Hood. Or would you prefer some bangers and mash?"

"Bells? That didn't make any sense."

"Blimey, I suppose it doesn't, does it? That was a bit of Cockney, you see. Mighty splendid, it is. I was talking about the bread and butter."

Thank goodness. Charlie was afraid that he was going to commit cannibalism at such an early hour.

"Go on, taste it."

Bella was looking at him with such hopeful eyes and he didn't want to disappoint her, even though he would probably spend the whole day sitting on the toilet.

He shoved a forkful of food into his mouth.

"I have to agree that it's 'aw Robin Hood,' Bells." Thank God it wasn't like any of Renée's cooking. It was absolutely delicious.

"Told you so," she replied smugly.

"Where's my coffee? Or are you going to serve me tea and crumpets from now on?"

The teenager scowled, surprising a laugh out of him.

"Nothing wrong with tea and crumpets, Dad. Don't knock it till you've tried it. I took the liberty of preparing you coffee, but didn't add and cream or sugar."

"Great. Just how I like it."

Bella handed him the steaming cup and joined him at the table.

"Are you going Brit on me, Bells?" he asked, eyeing the English muffins on the table. Surely, eating one won't raise his blood sugar level, right?

She smiled, but he failed to notice the tenseness that settled around her shoulders.

"Not really. I met this awfully nice chap in Arizona. He's from England."

"Oh?" His interest was piqued. Bella had never talked about male friends before. "Does this 'chap' have a name?"

Bella was silent for a moment.

"Harry."

"He your boyfriend?"

If he was, Charlie would extract his address from Bella and personally pay him a visit - just to give him a friendly warning, of course.

"Mer-God, why do fathers automatically assume that any male friend of their daughter is a boyfriend?" she demanded, inhaling food with unladylike gusto.

"You just evaded the question," he pointed out helpfully.

"I don't fancy Harry, okay, Dad? He doesn't think of me in that way. For all I know, he may be batting for the other side." The bread slice in her hands was noticeably getting soggy with butter. "Mer-God save me from overprotective fathers."

Charlie didn't believe her.

Why did he get the feeling that he would see more of this _Harry_ from now on?

* * *

><p>Charlie left first, with a gruff goodbye and instructions to lock up the house before going to school.<p>

Helga's knickers, that was one of the most awkward conversations Not-Bella had ever had. Imagine taking a fancy to himself! That would be weird. And depraved. And weird. Why did he ever mention Harry to Charlie, again?

A glance at the wall clock told Harry that it was still too early to head out, but he was too lazy to clean up manually. With a covert glance around, he spelled the dishes clean.

There. Good as new.

He reminded himself to drop by at a grocery store later. The cupboards had nothing but cobwebs and expired canned goods in it. The refrigerator was not better either. One had to wonder how Charlie Swan survived on beer and pizza alone.

The wizard had nothing else to do, so he went up to Bella's room and collected his things. His satchel was full of books which might as well be written in Gobbledygook and weighed heavily. He shoved his water bottle with the rest of his stuff, hoping that the container wouldn't spill.

A few brushes through his hair later, Harry deemed himself ready to face Hell. It was still raining, so he picked one of his jackets and slipped it on.

He double-checked to see if there was any magically incriminating evidence lying about. Aside from Hedwig lounging on the bed, it looked like a normal bedroom.

"Bye, Hedwig!" he called out. "Watch the room for me, will you?"

She didn't give any sign that she heard him, but Harry didn't expect her to.

* * *

><p>Not-Bella encountered another undeniable proof of his stupidity when he was left gaping at the front door...well, stupidly.<p>

Where the hell were the keys?

"_Accio_...keys?"

Nothing.

"_Accio_ household keys."

Still nothing.

"_Accio_ household keys hidden by Charlie."

...

"For the love of...come the fuck on!"

...

"Please?"

A shot of...something came from under the eaves and nearly took out his eye were it not for his badass seeker reflexes which made him duck out of the way. (What really happened was that he crouched down to see if the keys were hidden under the welcome mat.)

"Dammed, wonky magic," he muttered, oddly feeling that his magic was laughing at him. It did that a lot lately. He bent down again to pick up the keys and locked the door with a satisfied click.

It didn't occur much later to Harry that he could have used the _colloportus _spell.

And his dammed, wonky magic was still laughing at him.

* * *

><p>Harry and his new found friend Chevy the Truck wandered around for a while before spotting something that vaguely resembled a school. It only 'vaguely resembled a school' because of a sign that proclaimed it as 'Forks High.'<p>

Forks High School was quaint. Several little red houses were cluttered around the expanse of green land. The buildings were surrounded by trees that disguised the school's true size.

It was no Hogwarts, but then, nothing on Earth was (except for Hogwarts, of course).

Harry parked in front of the first building and went inside. He was too lazy to describe what the office looked like. Who cared about what he thought about it, anyway? It wasn't as if there were people tuned in to his thoughts right now.

So, turning away from the interior decoration of the office, he focused on the old biddy - ahem, lady - at the reception area. She had red hair, and he strongly suspected that the carpet didn't match the drapes in this one. Not that he wanted to find out personally. Eew.

"Can I help you?" she asked.

"Swan. Isabella Swan."

Any hope of having a relatively unknown stay here vanished in the glint of recognition in the spectacled eyes of the woman before him.

The boy groaned inwardly.

* * *

><p>After the faux redhead handed him his schedule, a map and other necessary crap, Not-Bella went back out to re-park his old pal. The parking lot was full of vehicles much like his Chevy (though there was none that could compare to his dear girl) except for a tacky, shiny, silver car whose paint job practically begged to be scratched.<p>

Harry ignored his vandalist tendencies - that sort of thing didn't make a good first impression. Maybe next time.

Bella's first class was English with Mr. Mason, a balding man who clearly had seen a potato chip too many. He sent Bella to a vacant desk at the back of the room after signing her slip.

The wizard could have sworn that the nosy students of Forks High had eyes at the back of their heads, because he could still feel the weight of their gazes from his remote area. Having been used to such blatant staring before, he tuned them out quite successfully.

He supposed that in a town as small as this, Bella Swan's arrival was the Next Great Story - probably the only story around here. Like the stuff of legends, the daughter of the Police Chief would be talked about for months, maybe years. It would go down in Forks history as the most monumental event of the century.

Not-Bella was starting to see that the good citizens of Forks desperately needed a life.

Mr. Mason handed him a reading list and Harry was delighted to see that he recognized the authors from Bella's old essays. It wouldn't be cheating if he used her essays as homework, would it? At least English wouldn't be a problem.

The bell rang and startled the heck out of him. The class was already over?

"You must be Isabella Swan."

Harry turned to the lanky, black haired lad who approached his seat.

A few if his classmates lagged behind, clearly wanting to listen in on the sordid tales of the new transfer student.

"That depends on who's asking," he replied warily. Who the hell was this cocky bloke?

"I'm Eric, Isabella."

"Bella," he corrected with a grimace. The name reminded him of the bitch who killed his godfather, but it was what Isabella preferred to be called as.

"What's your next class?"

"Government."

"I could take you there."

"O..kay?"

Not-Bella, Eric and the rest of their classmates collected their jackets and headed out into the rain.

"So, this is a lot different from Phoenix, huh?" Eric asked.

"Uh-huh."

"What's it like there?"

"A lot different from Forks," the boy-in-disguise said flatly.

"It's supposed to be hot there, right?"

Was he attempting small talk? The boy wasn't doing a good job at it. Harry was a bit miffed at the way Eric casually bandied about Bella's info. How did he even know that she was from Phoenix? 'Bella' hadn't even told him yet. What a busybody.

"You don't look very tan, Bella."

The wizard stared blankly at him, his hand itching for his wand and a _silencio_ charm. He wondered if there was a permanent one.

"That's because I'm a vampire," Harry replied placidly. "We don't tan that much."

"Really?"

Harry rolled his eyes. The people here would believe anything you'd say.

"Oh! That was a joke, right?"

Eric hadn't picked up his annoyance and continued chattering away until they reached the classroom.

"Good luck! Maybe we'll have another class together."

_Merlin, I hope not._

* * *

><p>By lunch hour, Harry finally mustered up some interest to address his classmates' curiosity. He was also quite famished, and was grateful when a classmate offered to accompany him to the cafeteria.<p>

She invited him to sit at their table, and he wasn't able to think of an excuse to refuse her. The blonde girl - whose name he kept on forgetting - introduced him to the rest of her friends. The chatty boy from earlier waved at him from the other side of the room.

Not-Bella ignored his tablemates' question in favor for his food. In this world, there were some things that took precedence over others, and his stomach was one of them. He was glad that he had packed his own lunch. The cafeteria food didn't look that appetizing.

The girl at his side - Jessica, as he learned from idle chatter - kept on bouncing on her seat, as if waiting for him to notice or ask something. She kept on glancing over at a table at the corner and back at him.

Harry frowned. She was distracting him from his scrumptious pudding! What -

"You must be wondering about the Cullens," Jessica gushed, apparently unable to stand the suspense any longer.

"I'm sorry, who?"

"The Cullens," she discretely pointed out the table she had been blatantly stalking with her eyes earlier.

Harry followed her gaze and found five statues sitting on the table. Weird, why did the cafeteria have sculptures sitting on a perfectly functional table? One of them moved - oh, they weren't statues, then.

He returned his attention back to the blonde at his side, wondering what the hell was important about them.

Jessica was still buzzing with energy, like a house elf that had too many butterbeers, so Harry let her talk. Even though he hadn't been asking in the first place.

"That's Edward, Alice and Emmett Cullen, and Rosalie and Jasper Hale. They all live together with Dr. Cullen and his wife, who adopted them."

Not-Bella still couldn't see The Point of this conversation. She continued on, blithely ignoring his disinterest.

Another glance at the table in question made him meet the bronze-haired boy's eye. Unable to resist, Harry stuck out his tongue at him. The guy startled, clearly not expecting it.

The wizard snickered.

"You just stuck out your tongue at _the _Edward Cullen!" She gave a scandalized gasp, as if Harry had stripped naked and danced the cancan on top of the table.

That thought had merit, he pondered seriously. Maybe he'd try that someday.

"So? Why are we talking about them, again?" he asked, uncapping his water bottle. Time for another dose.

"They are very hot, aren't they?" The blonde gave a giggle, which confirmed that the carpet matched the drapes in this one, unlike the old biddy at the front office. "They're all _together,_ though. And they _live _together."

Harry frowned again, losing the thread of their conversation for the nth time.

"What's wrong with that? They have to be together if they live together, right?"

She shook her head, as if Not-Bella had suggested that the Easter bunny was real and was his cousin-in-law.

"They're all together, _together_."

Why on earth did she repeat the word 'together' and italicize it on the second time?

"As lovers," she confided in the same scandalized tone she had used.

Ah. He perked up.

"You mean like an orgy?" That was kinda hot.

Absolute silence.

He belatedly realized that the whole table were eavesdropping in on their gossiping.

Oops.

"No, of course not!" Jessica sounded even more shocked than before, if that was possible. "Jasper's with Alice and Emmett's with Rosalie."

In other words, no orgy? Harry deflated (not like that, he didn't have the necessary parts right now, sadly), and lost his interest in them.

He focused on his seatmate, who was still mooning over the Cullen table. Rowena's left boob, the chit was even sighing once in a while, as if she was a heroine in some trashy romance novel!

In a flash, Not-Bella understood why.

"You have a 'crush' on them, don't you?" he asked, proud of himself for showing such girlish empathy. "Can't say I blame you, though. Ms. Playboy bunny's hot. And Tinkerbell. By Jove, is that girl on fire. But she could use a little meat on her bones."

Harry briefly entertained the thought of a threesome. The blonde bombshell would totally be a dominatrix. He couldn't tell about the dark-haired girl, but Sirius had said that it was always the quiet ones. What can he say? He was a hormonal, red-blooded male, not dead. Apparently, one's thoughts shifted to...somewhere else if his mind isn't occupied with the threat of a Dark Lord hanging over his head. All that testosterone had to go somewhere. And now, he knew where.

Not-Bella looked up, only to see that whole table staring at him. Using his newfound girlish empathy, he figured that they were staring at him _in horrified fascination._ Interestingly, the people they were talking about were staring at him too - including Ms. Playboy bunny and Tinkerbell.

But they were not merely staring in horrified fascination. The boy-in-disguise thought that he saw outright murder blazing in Ms. Playboy bunny's eyes.

He stared right back at them, wondering why the people around him acted as though they were witnessing a car accident in motion. Was it something he said? Oh -

He blushed hotly, cursing Bella's inflammable complexion, and dropped his eyes back to his lunch as though it held all the mysteries of the universe. He wanted to smack himself. He wanted to melt into a puddle at the floor. He wanted to obliterate himself from existence. He wanted to _obliviate_ them all, apparate out of here and never come back.

He could do the last one, he decided. Except -

There were muggles around him and he was supposed to be one of them. Right.

He sighed. Girlish empathy obviously hadn't worked for him. How could he have forgotten that he was a girl now, and should be checking out the guys, and not the girls?

"I suppose that the guys look nice, too," he mumbled, glancing at _their _table again. One of them looked constipated. Another - the beefcake - had the look of someone who was trying to stifle his laughter and failing utterly at it. The last male - _Edward_, his mind supplied - was still staring at him with an unnameable emotion - or maybe he was constipated too and was concentrating on not crapping his pants, like his adopted brother. Must be the cafeteria food.

At his side, Jessica moved her chair slightly away from him.

"Ah - yes," she stuttered out just as awkwardly as he had.

Great. At this rate, the whole _town _would think that Chief Swan's daughter was a bit...odd.

How would the good citizens of Forks call him here: The Queer One...or The Fag Who Lived?

Not one day in Forks, and he was already making a name for himself. Joy.

* * *

><p>There you go. A long chapter, with an obligatory dream sequence (it's gonna be important later on). I feel incredibly guilty that I updated first before studying, haha, because I don't know when I'm going to update next. My head hurts, so I'll just come back and fix whatever's wrong. I'm thinking of doing Eddie's pov, but I'm afraid that I'm going to screw it up. So, I'm probably not going to do it.<p>

I'm dying of jealousy of those who have watched the last HP movie. Was it really as epic as it sounds?

Please review!


	4. Eau du Sang

Disclaimer: If it was mine, Harry would be chained to the bed of one (or more) of the male characters, living out the rest of his life as a much-pampered love slave. Since he's not…

*double facepalm* I spent my week-end studying the brains out of me and foregoing to update this because of an upcoming test in my French class this week. Only to find out that the test is not supposed to be given this week. Or the next. Or the next – but rather, _three_ weeks from now. My paranoia finally caught up to me. And French _mots _are still swimming in my brain. Plus I wasn't able to watch the last HP movie because of that alleged test. Sigh._ C'est un travestissement!_

Haha, was that experience trying to tell me to 'update first, study later?'

Once again, thank you for the wonderful reviews, faves and alerts. Can I tell you how amused I am that you are taking advantage of my loose lips in review replies? I can't help it! You people ask very intelligent and perceptive questions. I am in awe of your genius. Or is that a product of having read too many fanfics?

Usual warnings: eventual slash, oocness, swearing, bouts of immaturity.

About the Harry/Bella thing: I know a lot of you are still wondering why the hell Harry is pretending to be Bella and where the real one is. Don't worry, all will be revealed in due time. Originally, the first chapter was supposed to be about what happened (I had written it and everything), but when I was about to post, I realized: oh what the heck…keeping you hanging is more fun. The climax gets sweeter because of the…foreplay, right?

There I go again with the innuendos (and the bloody long author's notes). I'll retrieve my mind out of the gutter someday, I promise. Please enjoy the (unexpectedly) early update!

* * *

><p>Chapter 4: Eau du Sang<p>

"_There she is."_

"_Where? The pale-skinned chick?"_

"_Do you think it's true? That she's…"_

"_Of course it is. Lauren was there and she told me everything about it."_

"_I dare you to ask the newbie personally if it was true."_

"_Who, me? No way!"_

"_Do you think she ever tried males before? Or has she always been like that?"_

"_City gals are so weird."_

"Man, new girl's got it bad," Emmett murmured. "I don't think we were ever that unpopular on the first day. That must be a new record."

From the corner of his eye, he saw the rest of his 'orgy'-mates watching the reactions of the student body to the fresh blood in their midst. That in turn reminded him of the fateful lunch hour and the new girl's ill-timed comment about orgies and bunnies. The thought was too much and he cracked up again.

Edward gave a disgruntled sound, apparently getting a front row center view of his thoughts.

"Forgive me, Emmett, if the notion of being with you in _that _way is much too revolting to contemplate."

"Why, Edward _darling_," he drawled in an uncanny (if he did say so himself) imitation of Jasper's accent. He heard the empath give an offended sniff at being so casually mocked. "You wound me. After all these years, after all that we've been through! I thought that you liked it up the -"

Rosalie cuffed him at the back of his head, making him yelp indignantly.

"Behave, Emmett," she ordered in the same frosty tone that he loved to hear, especially when she was –

Edward choked.

"Poor little baby brother," Emmett crooned, leaning closer to lord his superior height over his 'baby brother.' "You should be used to it by now."

"I'll never get used to _you_, Emmett," he replied, before pushing him away with infuriating ease. "Or to your thoughts."

"You're no fun, Eddie-poo. You're not my concubine anymore. I hereby banish you from my harem forever." He turned away from him melodramatically and clutched his heart the way that a heroine would have done if she found out that her mystery lover was actually the long-lost evil twin of her estranged half-brother on her previously-unknown father's side or some such tripe. He loved soap operas. "Why, Eduardo, why?"

"I'm not even your concubine," the telepath hissed dangerously. "And my name's not Eduardo or Eddie-poo."

"Touchy."

Riling up his baby brother was one of his most favorite things, second only to soap operas. It was all Edward's fault, really, for making it notoriously easy to do.

"He's not your concubine, Emmett. You're mine and it's _my_ harem, not yours," Rosalie declared haughtily, before fixing her deadly glare at Edward. "You can't have him, either."

Edward frowned.

"I'm not – "

"You're gay, Edward," Rosalie said bluntly. "You like it up the ass. You want to be someone's concubine – someone who's male, older than you, and would call you Eduardo and every other pet name you can think of. If it helps, he would also fulfill every sick fantasy in your sexually frustrated mind so that you'll be less of a son of a bitch than you are right now."

Emmett was staring at his girl with wide, adoring eyes.

"You're so hot when you talk filthy, babe," he said huskily, before Edward could snark back. "Wherever have you been all my un-life?"

Rosalie's smile spoke of promises of wicked, filthy, unspeakable delights, and he felt an answering, lascivious grin grow on his face.

"How did you know that Edward's gay, Rose?" Alice, who had been strangely quiet all morning, asked curiously - as if they have never had this discourse before.

"I have no say in this, haven't I?" the vampire-in-question ruefully commented. "Absolutely nothing to defend my affronted masculinity?"

"No you don't. You're in denial, so your opinion doesn't count. And to answer your question, Alice," the blonde continued, turning to her dark-haired sister. "Edward turned _me _down, didn't he? Imagine that!"

The self-dubbed 'most beautiful vampire in the world' flipped her hair in the way that she knew would undoubtedly annoy the others. Plus it brought attention to her long, silky, golden tresses.

"Rose," Alice said slowly. "If you weren't my dear, beloved sister, I would have slapped you a long time ago for being such a conceited, self-centered bitch."

"You wouldn't dare," Rosalie shot back smugly. "I'm your only playmate. Who else can you play dress up with?"

"Then I'll just find a new Barbie doll, won't I?"

"Who? No one else can put up with you the way I do."

Alice discreetly pointed to the human who was stumbling her way along the corridor.

"The new girl," she announced proudly, shocking all four of her captive audience.

"You're joking!" Rosalie burst out furiously when the surprise had worn off and outrage had taken its place. "Are you out of your mind?"

"Much as it pains me to agree with Rosalie," Edward said, earning himself a glare from the aforementioned vampire. "She's human, Alice."

"I'd love to be the new girl's friend, too! Maybe she has lesbian porn I haven't seen yet. Let's make her join our orgy!" Emmett put his worthless two cents in.

"Was it one of your visions, Alice?" Jasper asked quietly, taking her hand in a reassuring grip. "You're…preoccupied. Was she in them?"

"That's the thing," she confided in them worriedly. "I – I can't see her properly. I think she might have made our futures disappear, too."

There was a collective intake of breath, which served more as an expression of emotion rather than a respiratory function.

"And you want to be friends with _her_?" Rosalie bit out.

The petite vampire nodded happily.

"Don't you think there's something about her? A certain _je ne sais quoi_?"

"You just want to know why you couldn't _see_ her, not because of that fancy crap you said."

"That too."

"Think she's one of those mangy mutts in La Push?" Emmett suggested tentatively. "Her father seems awfully close to the Blacks. Maybe that's why your powers are going crazy."

The Cullens watched as the new girl tripped on what they swore was bare air and managed to bring down everyone who was unlucky enough to be in her vicinity. After the tangled heaps of arms and limbs on the floor have been sorted out, she sprang up to her feet, blushing and stammering out apologies to her disgruntled companions. She offered a hand, trying to assist them in regaining their footing.

The not-so-humans winced in sympathy when all the brunette's eager efforts to help only ended up in getting them entangled on the floor again.

Nah. Those filthy mongrels might be too cocky for their own good and smell horribly like wet dog to boot, but they were anything but clumsy.

"If Alice can't see her…what about you, Edward? What's the human thinking?"

It was a worthwhile query, so the telepath focused on the area where Bella was. He let his shields down, flinching subtly when other people's thoughts suddenly boomed in his head.

_I haven't done homework yet…_

_I hope he asks me out today. I have a new…._

_Newbie's hot…_

_I like bunnies…_

_Edward Cullen's staring at me. He's so hot! Oh no, he's staring at me! What do I do? I..._

The vampire paused when he realized that the last train of thought he was following didn't belong to his intended target, but rather to the starry-eyed teenager standing next to her. He didn't particularly want to know what the twit thought about him. Usually, it involved the person thinking and him in very…compromising positions that he didn't want to delve in further for the sake of his sanity.

_I like bunnies…bunnies in heat frolicking in the skies, moldy cockroaches in the snow singing to the giant cheeseburger jumping up and down on Planet Mars. I like yellow bats swimming in the air and scaring the crying baboon away. I like…_

Edward checked again, unable to believe the stream of thoughts he was receiving.

_I like…_

"Well?" Rosalie demanded.

"Her thought process is very…strange," Edward murmured slowly. Why did the new girl's bizarre musings made him think that he was gradually losing his hold on common sense? 'Strange' was a light way to put it. "Something about…bunnies in heat and moldy cockroaches?"

The long and awkward pauses were quickly becoming frequent when they were discussing the odd newcomer in town.

"Maybe she's insane?" Emmett offered.

"That seems likely."

"No, the new girl is definitely doing it on purpose!" Rosalie huffed angrily, beyond pissed at their interest in the new girl. "She's messing up with our minds in order to lure us into a false sense of security so that we'll all be helpless the moment she rips out our hearts one by one to eat them on a platter!"

"Don't be silly, Rosie," her mate said in an effort to pacify her. "Technically, we are heartless creatures, so there's nothing to rip out and eat. Our hearts would probably be hard as rock and not at all appetizing. You're just mad that she called you a playboy bunny."

"I'm not!" she insisted. "She's going to turn all our lives upside down, just you wait! And do you know what I'll do? I won't get angry. I won't help. No, I'll be sitting on the sidelines, laughing at your stupidity and telling you repeatedly that 'I told you so!'"

"You are too obsessed with ideas of vengeance, Rosalie."

"Shut up, Gay-ward."

"You did not just –"

"News flash! I just did."

"Children, please stop fighting."

"You're such a hypocrite, Emmett."

"E tu, Alice? Why am I always the childish one? Just because of _that_ incident – "

"Exactly. 'Nuff said."

"Speak for yourself, Pixie. I still remember the time when – "

"I had History class with her earlier."

The bickering stopped. Four pairs of eyes zoomed in with startling accuracy on the empath who was smiling faintly.

"Jasper, dear," Alice said with false sweetness. "Why didn't you tell us that bit of info sooner?"

He shrugged. "You didn't ask."

The seer's left eye started twitching.

Jasper inwardly smiled, amused at causing such unnecessary strife. There was no way to hide his enjoyment at their predicament, though – not when one had a telepath for an adopted brother. True enough, Edward gave him one of his signature glares.

"You should train your husband a lot harder, Alice," the bronze-haired vampire warned. "It seems like he hasn't been housebroken yet."

"Trust me, I will." Alice replied with a glare of her own. "I do believe that he's deriving too much amusement on our expense. Such selfishness should be punished."

Jasper shivered. The emotions emanating from his mate weren't very comforting.

"Can you talk about your Master and Pet fetish later?" Rosalie complained. "What happened in class?"

"She went in and sat down beside me," he said with relish. It was rare to have all of them listening to him, because they usually spent their time arguing. "We talked. Teacher gave us homework. That was it."

"What did you talk about?"

"She asked me if I was constipated. I told her no. She said, 'don't be shy, I have a bottle of castor oil in my bag.' I asked why she had one in the first place. She replied that it was for the 'anal-retentive sheep bleating about,'" Jasper informed them with a puzzled frown marring his forehead. "Do I look constipated to you?"

Emmett's badly hidden guffaw was all the answer he needed.

"That couldn't possibly have been the end of the story."

"You're right. It wasn't," he agreed. "I was just waiting for you to ask what happened next."

"Great. Even Jasper is affected by the new girl's insanity," Rosalie muttered. "One period with her and he's gone nuts already. How can you possibly think of befriending that – that _thing,_ Alice?"

Alice ignored her fair-haired sister and obliged her mate by asking what happened next.

"Then, out of curiosity I asked her if she was crazy. She told me that it was an 'acquired taste.' What followed was probably the oddest conversation I have ever had. Frankly, I did not understand even half of it." He shook his head, as if attempting to dispel the whole encounter.

"The new girl broke Jasper,"Emmett lamented, watching his poor brother bash his head on the locker.

"The new girl's name is Bella, you know."

"_You're on first name basis with her?"_

"Well, not really," the empath admitted. "I call her 'Crazy' and she calls me 'Cookie' for reasons I cannot determine."

"_You're on _nickname_ basis with her?"_

"I guess you can say that."

"How come I hadn't picked that up in your mind?"

"Really? How odd." Jasper regarded the silently brooding telepath. He wasn't particularly trying to hide it from Edward. "But I think there is something you all should know."

His fellow coven members waited impatiently for him to find the words to say.

"She – smelled unusual," Jasper gave another shrug. "One minute, I wanted to rip out her throat and drain her of her blood. The next, I just wanted to be close to her and breathe in her scent. But suddenly, I thought that her blood was utterly repugnant. Then the cycle would start all over again."

"Are you okay?" Alice placed a comforting hand on his shoulder.

He smiled at her.

"It didn't affect my control, if that's what you're asking. It was just a little disconcerting, that's all. Although, the conversation more than made up for it."

Rosalie rounded on to the brunette seer.

"You see? What will happen if you made friends with that thing?"

"'That thing' has a name."

"I hate to warn you guys, but 'That Thing' is making her way towards us right now."

If the group still had blood running through their veins, they would have blanched quite horribly.

"Quick! Act normal."

"Act normal? You're the one who's having a panic attack!"

"Do not!"

"Do too!"

"Shhh!"

"Here she comes."

Rosalie tossed her head and crossed her arms. Emmett shoved his head inside his open locker, watching the girl approach from his peripheral view. Jasper fiddled with the strap of his bag. Edward leaned on a locker and attempted to look nonchalant. Only Alice was blatantly ogling at the human. No one was meeting anyone's eye.

The girl didn't seem to be aware of the turmoil she was causing. She walked on, obsessively monitoring her every step as if her very life depended on her success at walking on a flat surface without tripping. She ignored the five non-humans who were doing their best to impersonate statues. To their surprise, she stopped right in front of Edward and met him directly in the eye.

The Cullens unconsciously tensed, wondering why the brunette approached the telepath personally. A thousand scenarios flashed through their minds. Did the human know their secret? Was she going to expose them right there and then, in front of hundreds of witnesses? Should they start planning to move away? What would they tell Carlisle? And Esme? They liked it here. What would happen if their adoptive parents found out that they had blown their cover?

At the background, they noticed the other teenagers stopping in their tracks to watch the potentially volatile encounter. Whispers began to break out. _No one_ approached a Cullen like that. It was one of the most important unwritten rules in the Forks High School handbook. (Soon to be written if the new girl would not survive the debacle, they thought privately.)

The new girl continued to stare, and Edward stared right back, although confused by the nonsensical thoughts that ran through her head.

_She had nice eyes,_ he realized a little too randomly.

Edward opened his mouth, but she beat him to it.

"You're leaning on my locker."

"Pardon?"

_Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit..._

Bella Swan's mind was a dangerous place to be in. He resurfaced out of her thoughts, shaking his head to clear his inexplicably fuzzy consciousness.

"You're leaning on my locker."

"Oh."

"You're. Leaning. on. my. Locker."

Bella looked at him expectantly. Alice jabbed him on the ribs.

_Move, you moron! _His sister scolded him. _What is wrong with you?_

He moved out of the way. The crowd, seeing that the fiery confrontation wasn't going to happen any time soon, quickly dispersed. The vampires inwardly sighed in relief, grateful that their secret still remained a secret - for now.

"Sorry about that," he muttered to her awkwardly.

The human nodded in acknowledgment and opened her locker.

Awkward silence ensued.

Alice came near her with something akin to morbid fascination shining in her eyes. Jasper was right about the scent of her blood, and she could tell that the others were similarly affected.

"Hello, Isabella," she tried.

"Bella, please," Bella replied, still with her head stuck inside the locker.

"Okay, 'Bella, please.'"

The human stopped and turned her head to stare at Alice with a perplexed expression on her face.

"Why are you talking to me?" she asked, not unkindly. "You must have heard by now that I have a severe case of Cootietitis. It's apparently contagious."

The vampire was completely unable to stifle the laugh that came out of her. In a flash of inspiration, she held out one hand and drew little circles on it with the fingers of the other.

"_Circle, circle, dot, dot. Now I have the cootie shot."_ She lifted her hand for Bella to see. "There. I'm already inoculated. Can we be friends now?"

Rosalie snorted. Delicately, of course.

Bella cocked her head to one side and glanced at her curiously.

"I could give you an immunization boost against Cootietitis too, if you want."

Chief Swan's daughter shook her head gravely.

"I'm afraid that it's too late for me now," she confided seriously. "I'm already at Stage 3. The doctor said that I don't have much time before I'll turn into a fairy and depart for Queerland to be quarantined with those who have been afflicted before me. I think I'm supposed to live out the rest of my days in hedonistic pleasures, kinky fetishes and sin. My eternal soul will be damned. Eternally. The Man Upstairs will blight me from where I stand any minute now, so can you please stand five meters away from me? Thanks."

"I didn't know that Cootietitis had stages," the seer remarked, ignoring her warnings and stepping closer to her. "How intriguing."

"Are they seriously having this conversation?" Alice heard Emmett mutter to Jasper incredulously.

"You could just imagine the one _I _had with her," Jasper muttered back blandly. "It was much, much worse than this."

"Of course it does!" Bella said in answer to her question. "Stage 3 is the worst and the deadliest of them all."

"How would you know what stage you are in?"

"The symptoms are very simple. First, you will feel unholy lust towards another. Second, your skin will get pale and clammy. Third, you will feel the need to shock others with your deplorable language and unruly disposition."

"Oh, no!" Alice fretted worriedly. "I think I have all those symptoms. Do you think I have Cootietitis, too?"

"Oh, yes," the human replied languidly. "You have to go see Dr. Jessica Stanley immediately. She's a Cootietiologist, and is absolutely the best in her field. She was the one who diagnosed me. She also has a doctorate in prejudice and a minor in bitchiness. I heard that she specializes in hypocrisy fairly well, too."

Alice grinned and held out her hand again, this time for the human to shake.

"Alice Cullen, resident outcast. You can call me 'Tinkerbell' if you want."

Bella blushed and took her hand almost shyly.

"You heard about that, too?" she groaned. "Bella Swan, newbie pariah."

"So, are you just going to stand there and wait for The Big Man to blight you?"

"No, I still have Biology. Maybe He'll do the blighting there later."

The girl turned, and noticed Jasper standing not far off. A wholly uncharacteristic smirk bloomed on her lips.

"Cookie! I didn't know you were here."

"Crazy," he replied with an answering smirk that Alice had never seen before.

_What a very interesting human._

The seer saw her blonde sister watching her.

_You're gonna regret this,_ she mouthed in warning, also observing the interaction between Jasper and the new girl.

Alice shrugged back.

_Maybe, maybe not. I can't tell anymore, and I want to know why._

* * *

><p>Why wasn't cooties popular in my culture? I would have had so much fun screwing with the minds of my classmates if ever we had that. *laments*<p>

There you go. A chapter in the Cullen's POV. For some reason, they always end up bickering in my head. Sorry about that.

We're nearing the van incident! I'm so excited. Harry's gonna have so much fun ruin – I mean, _changing _it. Yeah. I meant changing. Harry wants me to update soon, because he said that there was a sad 'lack' of 'Harry-ness' in this one. Insolent heathen that he is. We all needed a break from his craziness, right? Don't be blue, Harry. You'll be hogging the spotlight soon enough.

Sorry that it was shorter than the last one. I really have to go study now. _Je fais de _something.

Review, s'il vous plaît?


	5. Chapter 5

So sorry for the delay! I got a job recently. Along with school, ballet and violin lessons, I've been very busy. This chapter has been sitting in my notebook for months, but I finally had time to type and edit it. I've been listening to the Italian audiobook of Sorcerer's Stone while I'm finishing this (to those of you who have read the book or listened to the audiobook, why the hell did they change McGonagall's name to McGrannit? Lost in translation or something?)

I'm terribly sorry that I haven't replied to all the reviews yet. But thank you very much for the encouraging words. To the anonymous reader who asked if Harry was an uke here: I have a strong bottom bias...so if ever this story goes into that slashy direction (which will probably NOT...but I'm amenable to persuasion), Harry's going to be the one who'll be bending over and begging to be...well, you know what.

Hope you like it! Be prepared for Harry's...randomness. He really gets out of hand.

* * *

><p>Harry pouted.<p>

Why did he feel as if his life had suddenly gone through a scene break?

He felt used, abandoned and neglected. The whole world was conspiring against him, and it didn't even spare him the dignity of paying attention! He should blame the lazy-arsed author of his life story – the bitch or bastard must have gone through a hiatus and left all those lovely people hanging. How dare he? Or she?

He would curl up into a little ball and be a sobbing, heaving mess – right here in the middle of the hallway with all the anal-retentive sheep as witnesses. He would bring out his non-existent ipod thingies and play depressing songs like…like 'Rain, Rain, Go Away' or…or 'Jack and Jill.' He would dye his hair black and put black highlights on it that no one would notice, wear black shirts with misspelled texts on them, have a tattoo of Hedwig on his left bum cheek, and get a Prince Albert piercing. He'd compose a poem about the unfairness of life, something that might go like: _Life is so unfair/It's shaped like a…like a pear/I don't want to go to the…fair/Cause I don't want to pay the fare _(Nobody ever told Harry that he absolutely had no future as a poet. They were too kind to deprive him of his delusions).

Then he'd go and be depressed some more just for the heck of it.

Maybe Cookie and Edward would like to join in on his angstfest, too. They seemed like the brooding type. They would have a jolly good time being depressed together.

Did he just overuse the word 'like' in his train of angst-ridden thoughts? If he had been typing his thoughts on a computer just now, he would have pressed Ctrl + F to find out.

Not-Bella was so engrossed in planning his eventual descent into melodrama that he didn't notice that someone had jostled his shoulder – rather painfully, he realized, when the pain finally registered.

"Eew, why is there _trash_ in the hallway?" asked the shoulder-jostler.

The wizard recognized her as one of Jessica's friends from lunch earlier. He was pretty sure that she was Lauren. Lori? Loreen? Or – alright, so he wasn't certain of her name. Whoever she was, she was accompanied by several of her preppy friends. They gave off the aura of predators stalking a poor, hapless prey, but that could've just been his imagination.

"Really?" he questioned absentmindedly as a response to her previous question. Harry spotted the piece of trash that the girl was indicating, which was lying on the floor a couple of feet away from him. "You're right. Thanks, Loreen."

He picked it up and tossed it carelessly to the nearby wastebasket, completely missing the bewildered looks that the girls were giving him.

"My name's Lauren," the girl said hesitantly, as if she doubted the validity of her statement.

"Oh. Sorry about that." Lauren and her friends still seemed as if they were grasping for conversation cues, so Harry spared them the brain cells, the effort and the awkwardness by taking his leave. "Bye, then."

He turned on his heel and deliberately walked the other way, wondering idly if there was an underlying insult in their convo somewhere.

Not-Bella shook his head, quickly dispelling the notion. Nah. Lauren was a tree-hugger who cared so much about microscopic trash littering the hallway. Environment-friendly people didn't go about calling other people as crap, did they?

* * *

><p>Harry stepped inside the Biology classroom, relieved as hell that it was his second-to-the-last class. Merlin, High School was a lot worse than what he had imagined. And it was only his first day. He wondered how all those muggles had survived school. His respect for them increased a bit.<p>

How would he ever endure the next few months? He didn't have the hormones – or the propensity for melodrama – for this.

The classroom was full of students who grew silent and turned wary eyes on him the moment he appeared in their sight. They were probably still talking about the lunch time 'out-of-the-closet' confession. He resisted the urge to sneer at them. Or stick his tongue out. Or flash them his temporary female bits. He wouldn't do all of those things because he wasn't as immature as them. Nope. No way. He had breeding and sophistication, and he would not lower himself to the level of these lowly, lowered, low, low, lowlifes. If they didn't have bread, let them eat pizza and all that. He didn't care about what they thought. He didn't care if they thought that he was having an affair with Mrs. Not-So-Redhead at the front office and with Bella's own father (for such backwater hillbillies, the people around here sure had wild imaginations).

Although, he might have had – inadvertently, unintentionally, unknowingly, not deliberately – spread the rumor that Jessica Stanley was his secret love slave that he kept locked up in his 'Basement of Earthly Delights' after school hours. He didn't mean to do it, of course. Blame the euphemisms – they made everything sound so…_naughty._

"Hem-hem."

Harry jumped. It was not a show of athleticism, obviously, but an expression of surprise.

_Rowena's left boob! _(He always swore over the left, since legend had it that that one was luckier – and bigger – than its right counterpart.) Umbridge was alive! _Everyone, run for your lives!_

"Ms. Swan? Do you mind stepping inside so that I can begin the lesson?"

Oh – _oh._ It wasn't Umbridge, then. _False alarm, everyone._ _Drop the stakes, torches and pitchforks. No Umbridge to skewer here._

"Sorry, sir," he mumbled shamefacedly to the teacher looking expectantly at him. Damn it, his cheeks must be as bright as taillights. Was it possible to get a cheek transplant?

His inner guide on how not to be a loser told him that the next step after entering the classroom was to find the right seat, one that wasn't in front (those seats were reserved for the suck-ups), or one that wasn't too far back (those seats were for…well…).

Right. He could do that. Unfortunately, since he was the last to arrive, there weren't plenty of seats left to choose from. And since the lunch fiasco happened, he didn't think that there weren't any people who would willingly share a seat with the freak.

_Share a seat, win a freak. _He snickered.

In fact, the only vacant place left was next to –

The odd Cullen boy.

Scratch that: all the Cullens were odd, so he would refer to this one as the 'odd Cullen boy who was apparently his Biology classmate.'

Edward Cullen was staring out the window with his cheek propped up on one hand, in the typical manner of someone who was starring in a cheesy music video. Who knows? Maybe he _was _fancying himself as a 'luckless hero' dreaming of true love's kiss and all that tripe. He seemed like the type to spout sappy lines like 'I can't live without you,' 'You complete me,' or some such cavity-inducing sweetness.

It made Harry embarrassed just thinking about it.

Cullen didn't budge when Harry took the seat beside him. The silent treatment rather relieved the wizard. It was better than sitting next to a classmate who had an unhealthy fascination with his salacious, hedonistic, sexual exploits. Much, much better.

Harry fidgeted in his chair while the teacher droned on about fellatio and santorum. Well, Mr. Banner wasn't really talking about those, but since he wasn't listening, he could make things up, right?

But why did he start to feel awkward? Was it because of the statue beside him?

He snuck a peek at his seatmate. Cullen was still in the same position as he had last seen him in. Not-Bella could have sworn that his dark eyes hadn't blinked even once; which was so cool in many ways. Harry couldn't outstare his owl Hedwig (the real one; outstaring the stuffed one was downright impossible), but he bet that Cullen could.

At last, his classmate showed a sign of humanity by heaving a sigh.

He froze.

Harry froze too.

He sensed the other's tension – saw it in the rigid lines of his shoulders, his unconsciously clenching fists, and in the way the angle of his jaw firmed too tightly. Whatever it was, it made Cullen downright uncomfortable.

Not-Bella was beginning to worry about the other male. He was in the midst of saying something – a question, a joke, anything to dispel the stifling ambience – when Edward Cullen turned his head and glared at him.

The wizard knew that glare and could classify it into three degrees: Draconian, Snapeish, and Voldemortial. This glare hovered in between the last two. But while he could understand why Draco, Snape and Voldemort had glared at him at several points in his life (Draco hated Harry for being better than him, Snape despised him for being his father's son, and Ole' Tom loathed his guts because of a damned prophecy that had ruined his entire fucking life – or maybe they all hated him because they were such miserable little gits), he didn't know why someone he'd known for a mere day would show him such a sign of enmity.

He also couldn't explain why he felt the slightest bit of hurt. Really, he should be used to it by now.

Maybe Cullen was angry because 'Bella' had hit on his two sisters? Maybe he was playing the 'overprotective brother' role. Or maybe he hated queers like him.

Edward was just like the rest of them. For a moment there he thought he'd found…what? Someone who understood? Someone special? A friend?

_I thought you were different._

Harry grimaced. He was being a bloody dandy again…thinking of horse shite like…like companionship, loyalty and understanding. Hadn't he told himself that he was tired of all this – this senseless brooding? He didn't want to dwell on those thoughts anymore. He had forgotten all about it, hadn't he?

Until that odd Cullen boy reminded him.

Why was he getting so worked up over a stranger?

Not-Bella let his head fall on the desk with a resounding thud. He did it again. And again. And again, hoping to get rid of his ridiculous musings.

"Ms. Swan? What on earth are you doing?"

The boy bolted straight up his seat to find the whole class staring at him. Honestly, he was getting used to the sensation already.

He blanched horribly at the thought. First was the talk about flashing his female bits and now this? Merlin, he was turning into some sort of wicked exhibitionist! Maybe someday, he'd even invite all his classmates to watch while he had his way with Charlie and the lady at the front office, or with Jessica as he punished her in his secret basement!

_Calm down, you moron! Those were just rumors, remember? Rumors that you spread, halfwit._

The annoying voice in his head was right. He needed to pull his act together.

_I'm pretty sure that you're not supposed to agree with me. I'm the annoying voice in your head. I provide contrast to your thoughts. I help move the plot along while you're too busy being a twittering ninny. I reveal the deepest, darkest fantasies that your conscious mind denies. I – _

Harry stuffed the annoying voice into the 'deepest, darkest' part he could find in his mind, making sure that it was bound and gagged tightly. But knowing the 'annoying voice,' it was probably enjoying the rough treatment.

"Ms. Swan?"

"I'm conducting an experiment, sir," he explained blandly. "Studies show a drastic increase or decrease in information retention when one uses proactive methods."

"And I take it that the 'proactive method' you chose is to bang your head needlessly onto your desk, risking memory loss and permanent brain damage?"

"Uh, yes?"

Mr. Banner was looking at him with a strange expression on his face. Harry stared back in equal measure.

"I…see," he replied. "Carry on then, Ms. Swan. Just try not to crack your cranium and spill your brains out."

"Aye, aye, sir." He might find Biology a bit boring and too confusing by half, but at least the teacher was a riot. He would have so much fun with him!

His 'scientific experiment' was effective: thoughts of fathomless black eyes and bronze-tinted hair left his mind as Harry happily followed his teacher's advice.

Because he did not just think about his _male_ classmate's eyes and hair. That would be too girly of him. His manly pride has been stomped on too much on one day.

* * *

><p>He resolved to banish the memory of wrath-colored irises out of his mind.<p>

Really, he tried. Cross his heart, hope to die and all that.

He didn't know why it bothered him so much. Maybe it was because he wasn't used to being hated for no apparent reason? Scratch that. The moment that Snape had met his eyes when he was in his first year, it was hate at first sight. He hadn't known the reason why back then, too.

But this one was different. For Merlin's sake, it was bringing out his inner!angsty!Harry from where he had buried it!

Hermione had always told him that he tended to overanalyze things and see conspiracies where they weren't there. Ron had always shrugged and complained about homework – but then, that was Ron: a loveable, emotionally-constipated idiot.

Maybe, in this instance, Hermione was right?

_Dear Hermione,_ he mentally composed. _I'm writing to you and not to Ron because I need your emotionally intelligent advice and we both know that Ron barely remembers the meaning of the words 'tact' and 'sensitivity.' Actually, I don't know if those terms are even in his vocabulary. Plus, he'd only laugh at me. You see, I have this problem. Mind you, it's just a small one and it's not really bothering me that much. Siriusly (oh come one, we both know that that joke is bound to pop up sooner or later). Nope. I'm just writing to you out of idle curiosity. Yes, that's my reason. Wait, don't incendio this letter! I'm getting right on it. I'm not gonna – going to (you're probably editing this letter as you read it, aren't you?) - ramble. Oh Merlin, I'm rambling, am I not? And I haven't told you what the matter is. The thing is, I don't know what it is, too._

He could only imagine the Howler that Hermione would owl him if he ever sent such a letter.

However, he could predict Ron's reaction to his dilemma.

_Bloody hell, mate. _Ron would say._ You think like a girl._

Then Hermione would cuff him at the back of his head for being an insensitive bastard.

Harry smiled. Thinking about his friends made him feel a lot better already.

If his smile was a bit bitter, he merely ignored it.

* * *

><p>When the bell finally rang, Cullen was among the first ones to leave. Not that Harry cared or anything. He just happened to glance at his classmate's seat and saw him leave as if a vampire was chasing him - or maybe just a wizard-disguised-a-girl. Those things were downright dangerous. Not-Bella could personally attest to that.<p>

"Hey, aren't you Isabella Swan?"

Harry looked up to see what could possibly be a golden retriever in its cursed, human form.

_Note to self: it's very rude to compare your classmates to animals, even if you really, really want to, Harry._

"Bella." That was what she would always say first.

"I'm Mike."

"Hi, Mike." What the hell? Were the two of them in Alcoholics Anonymous or something?

Not-Bella tried to think of the politest way to say 'leave me the fuck alone' – but that wasn't very sociable at all. When Mike didn't say anything, he got up and prepared to leave. "Bye, Mike."

"Wait, Bella! Do you need help finding your next class?"

Mike was just being nice to him. The wizard immediately felt guilty about his antisocial behavior and decided to take up his offer.

"Do you know where the gym is?"

"Sure! That's where my next class, too!" the Forkian said eagerly. (What do you call people from Forks? Forkese? Forkites? Forkish?)

"O – okay."

Not-Bella was just being too paranoid. Mike was a harmless, friendly person. Mike was a 'top-o'-the-morning,' 'I-don't-listen-to-the-shite-other-people-are-saying' kind of guy. Mike was –

"So, did you stab Edward Cullen with a pencil or what? I've never seen him act like that. Or maybe it was because of what you said during lunch, right?"

– a shameless, mangy, un-cute golden retriever who hounded for rumors to bring back to his fellow gossip-hungry mutts.

"Don't be preposterous, Michael."

"I know, right? I was just kidding, don't take it too badly. Plus, who says 'preposterous' nowadays – "

"I didn't have a pencil with me, so I used my pen instead. Black and red goes so well together, don't you think?"

"Wha-what?"

"Sullen Cullen's expression was very priceless. I wish I had brought my plastic spork to Biology. That would have made a more beautiful mess."

"Wha-what?"

"The art of thigh-stabbing is greatly underappreciated. Nobody understands how much finesse and precision it takes to do the hacking, gouging, and stabbing. Would you like to learn from a pro? I could use you as a demo."

"Wha-what?"

"Tut-tut. You really should close your mouth, Michael. Who knows what kinds of things can go inside it? Not all of them are pleasant, you see."

Satisfied that he had given a pretty good impression of a psycho thigh-stabber, Harry turned heel and left with an extra flounce in his step. Maybe he should have added an evil laugh at the end?

Nah. That would have been too tacky. He would just reserve it for a special occasion.

* * *

><p>The wizard let out a sigh. High School wasn't like anything he had imagined.<p>

It was much, much worse.

He was about to leave the hellhole when he suddenly remembered that he was supposed to bring back the dratted classroom slips to the old biddy.

Harry could hear voices inside the room when he made a detour to the front office. There he was, minding his own business (and not eavesdropping at all), when he heard, "Mrs. Cooper…"

Harry knew that voice. He knew what that tone meant, too. It was what those dirty old men used when coaxing young maidens into debauchery…among other things.

His brain shut down. Who in the world was Mrs. Cooper? Did he somehow miss a hot babe that went by the name of 'Mrs. Cooper' when he passed by the office earlier?

It was so unfair.

"Oh, Edward…"

Bloody hell! The old biddy was Mrs. Cooper?

"Edward…"

What was…what were they…

"Please…would you…?"

"You know I can't, my…"

Not-Bella must have made some noise because there was some shuffling and a hurried, 'Come in, my dear!" He swung the door open, afraid of what he might witness.

"Er…hullo?"

Edward Cullen didn't have Mrs. Cooper sprawled wantonly on the desk and doing unspeakable things to her. Of course not. And of course, Harry wasn't thinking anything like that. He was a good boy of high moral caliber. The very idea was ridiculous.

"I'm sorry, Edward. I can't exempt you from your Biology class without a legitimate reason," Mrs. Cooper said with a slightly more professional tone.

Cullen wanted to drop his Biology class? On the day that 'Bella Swan' arrived and became his classmate in the said class?

_Stop, Harry. Remember what Hermione had always said about you and your conspiracy theories?_

"Never mind," Edward murmured silkily. Until now, Harry didn't know that people can speak like fabric. Can someone sound cottonly? Taffeta-ish?"I guess I have to bear with the company for now."

Then he exited in a sullen, Cullenly manner without saying goodbye to the Mrs. Robinson-wannabe.

Did he just –

Yes, he did.

Take that, Hermione! Sometimes my conspiracy theories are right!

_About three things I was absolutely positive. First, pretty boy Cullen was a veela. Either that, or he's had too many plastic surgeries or botox treatments. Second, there was a part of him – and I didn't know how big that part might be – that was stuck up his arse so high that not even an enema can pull it out. And third, he was unconditionally and inexplicably in hate with me._

_The feeling was damn mutual._

* * *

><p>Chevy sputtered to a halt in front of Charlie's house.<p>

Harry sighed and stared blankly at the dashboard.

Merlin, what had he been thinking? He was too old for high school drama. Too old and too male and too…Harry.

No matter. He promised himself that he would see this scheme to the very end. If he had to second-guess his every decision like a half-arsed pansy, he wouldn't get much work done.

_No regrets._

But when was the end of all this? When his secret would be discovered? When he'd get tired of living someone else's life? When he'd finally realize that it was stupid of him to think that he could ever escape from…from everything?

Unbuckling his seatbelt, Harry stepped out of Chevy with one last fond pat on her side mirror.

"Thanks for the ride, babe," he cooed to her. "We should do this next time."

Charlie wasn't home yet, he mused, noticing that the house was still dark and the garage was still empty. He opened the door with a lazy flick of his hand, too tired to bother retrieving the keys.

Late afternoon sunshine filtered through the gaps in between the curtains, putting a ghostly contrast of light and shadow in every corner of the living room. The silence hung heavily in the air.

He wondered if this was what Charlie always felt whenever he returned from work.

Alone. Abandoned. Forgotten. As insignificant as the dust particles coating the fading picture frames.

He wondered if Bella thought that her father was expendable. Renée had once said that her husband was married to his job. Harry had no idea if that was true, but he knew one thing.

Charlie was a human who could laugh, cry and be mad like anyone else. Maybe he was 'married' to his job because – because…

He didn't have anything – or anybody – else.

Harry sank onto the sofa, unable to understand the sudden lethargy that took over his body. He felt himself lax, and his eyelids grew…very…heavy…

Yes…he'd nap for a little bit…just…

* * *

><p><em>A kaleidoscope of dizzying colors flashed through his sense, crystallizing with sharp focus on a room that was familiar yet unfamiliar at the same time.<em>

_Are you having those dreams again, Harry? _

_A slender young woman and a redhaired man standing close together_

_Yes. I'm scared of them, 'Mione._

_He didn't say that! He didn't mean to say that._

_He wasn't scared. _

_Make them go away, 'Mione._

_He didn't want them to go away._

_I'm scared._

_He wasn't scared._

_Two pairs of eyes gazing at him with understanding_

_NO! You don't…understand_

_He didn't want…I don't need your fucking pity_

* * *

><p>Harry woke up to the sight of the wrong end of a rifle staring down at him.<p>

"You have ten seconds," Charlie snarled, so unlike the awkward middle-aged man Harry had said goodbye to this morning, "To explain why I shouldn't blow your fucking brains out from where you are."

Why -

Not-Bella gulped, catching sight of himself on the reflective surface of the coffee table.

A pair of bright green eyes stared back at him fearfully.

Oh, shite.

* * *

><p>I finally understand why authors end with a cliffie. It feels absolutely delicious. Maybe I should end every chapter with one?<p>

'Prince Albert piercing' *facepalms* The things you learn while reading fanfic are...please, for the love of God, if you don't know what it means, don't look it up. I wish to spare your innocence. :)

Happy Christmas!


	6. My Happy Place

AN: Soo...it's almost been a year. I'm surprised (and quite relieved) that nobody has killed me yet for not updating this sooner. I have tons of excuses, though if I list them one by one, I'm sure that I'll only make you madder, haha.

This chapter is a bit shorter than usual and may require you to read back on the previous ones because I make some references that might be a bit confusing. After all, it's been quite a long time. It's also short because I split it in two. I will upload it as soon as I can.

On with the chapter!

* * *

><p>Chapter 6 My Happy Place<p>

"This is _not_ what it looks like."

The black, fulminating glare did not waver.

Harry briefly wondered why he knew the word _fulminating_, but discounted the thought as something irrelevant to the Matter At Hand.

The Matter At Hand right now was looking pretty bleak. Only, not pretty. And it was more than bleak. In fact, it looked positively formidable. Downright frightening? Yes. And human. Armed with a gun of a caliber that the wizard did not know nor care to know about. Ever. Who cared about semantics and calibers when one's head is about to be blown off, quite literally?

"Ten."

He gulped.

"I didn't break in and enter?"

"Nine."

"I didn't dismember your daughter and put her arms in the freezer?"

A pause. And then…

Not-Bella heard the audible click of something menacing. He'd watched too many mafia movies not to recognize it.

"Eight."

"And…and I didn't steal her clothes and wear them?"

He had a feeling that he was just digging his hole deeper. It was probably so deep that at his time of burial, his mutilated cadaver would end up at the other side of the world. Probably in China or something.

"Six."

"What happened to six? You skipped count, Mr. Police Officer Man."

_Implying that the bloke is stupid is not very bright either, Mr. Harry-Doomed-to-Die-Potter._

"Three."

Was this how he was going to die? Could Harry's stupidity accomplish what a snake-faced, drama queen dark lord could not?

_Goodbye, World. I shall depart from you as a twenty-five year old pervert posing as a seventeen year old _girl_ because of…oh well, never mind the reason. _

"Two."

Why the fuck wasn't his life flashing before his eyes? It was the least thing he could ask for the last two seconds of his life.

But then again, knowing how messed up his life was, he really shouldn't ask for it.

"One."

Harry imagined the boom, and the crimson stain blossoming on his… girl shirt (it was _not _a blouse). He imagined coughing up blood, and his emerald-verdant-bottlegreen-hazel-green eyes would moist at the corners with crystalline drops of saline liquid, his life force ebbing out as he was laid low on the Swan's Walmart-bought sofa (Could a person buy sofas at Walmart? He hadn't checked, and he lamented the loss of opportunity to do so. Being dead tended to leave a lot of unfinished business, after all). Mr. Swan would gaze in anguish at his beautiful corpse and fall onto his knees, realizing what a cad he was for depriving the world of this _pulchritudinous _(where in the hell did that come from?), altruistic and immaculate soul. And of course weep buckets and buckets of tears while the credits rolled on apathetically.

Only, of course, that didn't happen.

Something boomed, yes, but it was a different kind of _boom._ It was the boom of the doors being opened by some frantic or crazed person. Most likely both.

"DAD, DON'T!"

Bella Swan strode into the house, with something akin to panic flaring in her eyes.

* * *

><p><em>If he was in a book, that would have been a good chapter ending,<em> Harry mused, still staring at Bella's heaving form and the indecisive one of her father. Who was still holding his gun, Merlindammit, and now that his arse was safe, can Charlie Swan put the long thing (maybe he was compensating for something?) back where it came from before the kiddies get hurt?

That wasn't the important matter.

Bella Swan.

_Bella Swan._

_Isabella Marie Swan _was standing in the same room as him.

It wasn't possible. He made sure of that when he…

"Bella," her father said gruffly. "I'm glad that you're alright."

She cocked her hand on her hip, ignoring the incredulous glance that the green-eyed boy was sending her. "Why wouldn't I be?"

"This-this _boy_ here," he glared down at the 'boy' who gave off something like a squeak (but under no circumstances would he consider it as such. Harry Potter did _not _squeak. He grunted. In an extremely manly manner.), "Seems to have broken in our house and wore your clothes like some sort of-of _unholy deviant._ What was I supposed to think?"

The 'unholy deviant' shrank further into the little corner of the sofa – which henceforth shall be known as 'Harry's little corner of the sofa.' Now that the threat of his life was over, Harry began to focus on another Matter At Hand.

Like how the hell was Bella standing in the living room while he was only a couple of feet away from her.

He already said that, hadn't he?

"Oh, come on, he's not an unholy deviant, Dad," she strode forward and plopped herself near _Harry's little corner of the sofa_. Hadn't she heard of territory rights? Go away, imposter number two! Why did this-this fake have to do her plopping so near him? "He's just Harry."

Who was this _BITCH_ pretending to be Bella Swan?

"Harry? Your gay British friend?" Charlie asked, promptly flushing a little when he realized how insulting his words were.

Harry took no offense. He was using the 12th century meaning of the word 'gay,' after all. Nothing wrong with being happy and smiley and all that optimistic shite.

"Yes, exactly. He's my cute, gay British friend who came to see his beautiful friend Bella only to have his bits nearly blown off because – lookie, lookie! – _someone's _overreacting."

The –_real _– Bella would never speak like that. Then, who-

Charlie had the grace to look guilty.

"Well, I suppose I did jump to conclusions," he admitted gruffly.

"You didn't only jump, Dad," Bella added cheerfully. "You leapt, bounded and somersaulted like an Olympics pro. It's quite astonishing, really."

"And he's wearing your clothes, because…?"

The so-not-Bella whipped out a kerchief out of nowhere, dabbing at her crocodile tears and blowing noisily into a piece of cloth. "Harry's boyfriend – uh – Draco broke up with him, and I didn't know how to comfort him other than by playing dress up. The girly shirt – I mean, blouse – is Versace, after all. What fashionista could refuse that?"

Draco? Girly shirt? Oh…

Harry could have slapped himself for not realizing it sooner.

_Bella's_ smug little smirk grew as she took a long drink from the thermos flask Harry had left on the table a while ago.

The _Polyjuice-filled _thermos flask.

_It took you a long time to figure it out. _A voice mocked tauntingly in his head.

His eyes narrowed at her. _You're a smug little bastard, aren't you?_

Her eyebrow raised. _You do realize that you've just insulted yourself, haven't you? Now play along, you idiot. _

Still glaring at 'her,' Harry piped up in his most obnoxious girly drawl.

"Bella, darling, Draco didn't break up with me. We just had a bit of a…tiffle. He said that Tom Felton was a lot cuter than Daniel Radcliffe and I just. Had. To. Disagree."

"That's ludicrous, Ree-ree. Are you sure it wasn't because of the Pink Tequila and the Thong Incident?"

"What Pink Tequila and the Thong Incident, _Bel-bel_?"

_What Pink Tequila and the Thong Incident? _He asked her incredulously.

_You know...the one with the tequila. And the...thong. And...you, of course._

Bella was making a 'tsking' sound.

"I'm not surprised you don't remember. Dray-dray was absolutely mortified by it. He told me that he never wanted to be seen with you in public unless for an extremely good reason - which doesn't involve pink tequila in any shape or form."

That was utter _bullshit._

Harry glanced subtly towards the forgotten person in the room, wondering if a seasoned interrogator/police officer would buy the the obvious crap that this audacious liar was spinning off the top of her phony head.

Charlie was standing awkwardly to one side with his gun in hand. He clearly didn't want to hear about thongs, tequilas and teenage woes.

He seemed to swallow it without a doubt, though.

The green-eyed boy wanted to facepalm. Was this really the Fork's Chief of Police?

"Much as I think that this is all interesting," Charlie interrupted before Not-Bella Version Two (or One) could get a word in edgewise. "I have to…go somewhere. Have fun Bella...Harry."

With one last _fulminating __glare _at the wizard, Bella's dad left with an air of confusion. It wasn't surprising since he had to deal with a catastrophic phenomenon that went by the name of Harry. And in this case, it was doubly worse.

After all, who could deal with _two Harrys_ at the same time?

* * *

><p>How did Harry do it? I'm sure you'll all be able to guess. Please review!<p> 


	7. Harry and Harry

I'M ALIVE! By now, you're probably used to how long before I update. And I can't tell you how sorry I am about it. Balancing school, two jobs, ballet, gymnastics and violin lessons is kinda hard (who're you calling an overachiever? :P). But do not fear, come hell or high water, _**I PROMISE TO FINISH THIS STORY**_. Scout's honor (although I've never been a scout, so make of that as you will). I already know how this story ends and all the events in-between. All I need is some time to translate mind-speak to real-speak. And for life to stop bugging me so hard (which is probably kinda my fault anyway.)

Enjoy!

* * *

><p>Chapter 7: Harry and Harry<p>

"I got a question, though," Harry said, once Charlie returned to normal blood pressure levels and put the pointy, blasting thing away.

Harry and 'Bella' were alone in the living room after the latter's dad has finally realized that no debauchery was happening between his precious daughter and the oddball perverted enough to wear her clothes.

"Out of all the people I know, why on this green earth did you choose Draco-sodding-Malfoy as my pretend ex-boyfriend?"

"Oh, for goodness' sake, Harry. Haven't you been listening? You and he are not exes. Yet. You're both just going through a phase."

"That's not the point, _Harry."_

"Why? Would you rather I choose somebody else? Neville? Ron? Hagrid? Are you the bear type?"

What has _bears _got to do with anything?

Harry- the real one and not the crazy Time Turner version disguised as Bella – shook away the non-sequitur. Of course he knew what non-sequitur means, thank you very much. Don't insult his intelligence.

"Why in Merlin's pants should I be gay in the first place? Can't you come up with a normal cover-up story?"

"I panicked, okay? Harry, did you see how close Charlie was to blowing your puny little balls off? Now, I don't know about you, but I'm rather fond of them. If I didn't tell him that you batted for the other team, he would have thought that you had illicit designs on his innocent, virginal daughter."

The boy in girl's clothes (he was _not _crossdressing) sniffed.

"My balls are neither puny nor little."

'Bella' rolled her eyes.

"You have the remarkable ability not to focus on the important and _bigger _things. I don't know whether I should be amazed or appalled."

Harry glared at his future self.

"You're enjoying this too much. Are you having a _schadenfreude_?"

Bella lifted the necklace hung around her neck, fiddling with the hourglass pendant dangling from it.

"Of course not. I'm _you, _remember?"

"You're messing with me. First you belittle my phallic magnificence and now you're slandering my psychological cognizance!"

"Why are you so obsessed with your dick, anyway?" She shot back.

"I'm not having this conversation with myself. Especially myself masquerading as a _girl._"

Harry glanced around for Charlie. Seeing no one there aside from the asinine creature sitting beside him, he waved a hand over himself. A blue shirt and black slacks instantly replaced the girly thing he was wearing earlier.

"Why are you so mean to me, _Hawee?" _Not-Bella whined. "This is all your fault anyway!"

"My fault? If it was my fault, then it was your fault too! How can it be mine without it being yours?!"

"Because I said so. Plus, I'm older than you."

"By a few bloody hours! And the fact that we're the same blasted person makes your argument invalid and completely ludicrous!"

Harry wondered what would happen if he _accidentally _killed his future self. Was this how everyone felt around him? Did he inflame the murderous passions of people he interacted with on a daily basis? Did he ever make them feel like killing is absolutely necessary for the greater good particularly when dealing with a Harry-related problem?

He discarded the thoughts immediately. Harry James Potter - future or past version whether boy or disguised as otherwise – was effing adorable. No one could say otherwise.

"Seriously, Harry James Potter. You're not as adorable as you think you are."

He steadfastly ignored _her_.

"Harrikins? Are you _ignoring _me?"

He leaned and rested his head over the couch's arm.

"You totally are. I totally know because I did it too hours ago."

He closed his eyes.

"Hawee? _Hawee? Ha-"_

"So _totally _shut up for a moment, okay? Please."

He kicked her nearby leg for good measure.

"Hey! That is no way to treat a genteel young lady."

"I don't see any."

"You barbaric, uncouth heathen! I saved your ass and your _puny little _dick and what do I get? Nothing."

"You wouldn't be here if I died, would you? Isn't that enough benefit?"

"If you hadn't drooled on the couch and forgotten to drink the polyjuice you prepared, we wouldn't even be in this situation. You could be sitting pretty there as Bella, and I wouldn't suffer conversing with my idiotic, past self. We were both lucky that your amazing future self remembered the Time Turner you picked up in that antiques shop in Florence."

They both looked at the water canteen-in-question sitting innocuously on the coffee table.

"At least I managed to lengthen the polyjuice's effects to more than an hour," Harry mumbled, feeling the need to vindicate himself. "Despite us being complete dunderheads in potion making. And I made it lemon-drop flavored."

"I don't know how the last part is relevant to our current discussion."

"Don't diss the drops! How long is 'Bella' planning her 'gay British friend' to be here, anyway?"

Bella frowned.

"I – haven't thought that far yet," she admitted.

He groaned in reply.

_Why couldn't you have come up with a much simpler solution? _He thought to her. _I think my memory charm is not too rusty._

_No way, Harry. You know that your magic is unpredictable and too strong after – after _you-know-what_._ _Who knows what you could've done to poor Charlie? He might've spent the rest of his life thinking that he was a one-legged, Swahili-speaking, cancan-dancing llama._

Harry blinked. That was oddly specific.

_Remember Mr. Kelekolio when we visited Hawaii? He never recovered after that. _

"There's one thing I've been wondering about," the boy said out loud, trying to steer away the conversation from Mr. Kelekolio's Unfortunate Accident.

Bella grinned widely. "Oooh, I have wanted to answer this question since three hours ago just to see the dumb look on your face. But ask me the question first."

"I thought that a person seeing his or her future self while using the Time Turner can destroy his or her sanity. So, why aren't I stark raving mad now?"

Her grin, if it was possible, grew wider – something that could put the Cheshire Cat to shame and make the feline go back to Grinning School.

"I have two theories about that: possible and more possible. Which one would you like to hear first?"

"The less possible one, I guess?"

He had a feeling that he wouldn't like either theory, anyway.

"First is that you're technically not seeing your future self. I'm wearing Bella's skin, and you're…you."

He raised an eyebrow at her. The way that future-Harry said 'you' was in a tone of voice which a person uses for the unwelcome scum at the bottom of his shoe.

He didn't like it one bit.

"And the second theory?"

"You were already stark raving mad in the first place, Harry darling."

* * *

><p>"Bells? Is your…friend still here?"<p>

Not-Bella found Charlie in the kitchen, heating up the muffins she baked earlier.

"He's in the living room, Dad. Watching _Angelina Ballerina._"

What? They were pastel-colored, ballet-dancing mice. Nothing could get much cooler than that.

Charlie either wasn't updated about the hottest cartoons or chose to ignore the second part of her reply.

"How did he even get here from Arizona? I didn't see any vehicle up front."

Shite.

She laughed nervously.

"Harry parked his motorcycle at the back. He's very protective of it."

_Note to self: unshrink Sirius' bike and put it in the backyard._

"Will he stay for the night?"

"Nah. He probably has some more places to go."

"Perhaps you could ask him to stay for dinner? Although the fridge's not stocked with anything. We could just order pizza instead."

"There is no way that I would let my father eat cholesterol-filled cardboard junk food. Don't worry about the food, Dad. Harry-poo!" The boy-in-disguise hollered. "Come here for a tic?"

Harry's head popped up into view from the kitchen doorway. He was glancing warily at her, how cute.

"What is it, _Bel-bel?" _

The sarcasm in his tone flew right over Charlie's head, but Bella smiled sweetly upon hearing it. She withdrew a roll of paper from her pocket.

"Do you mind stopping by at the General Store for a few things? I need them for tonight's dinner."

_Oh yes, I do mind, bitch. _He thought at her, but he took the paper with a befuddled air of a kitten confronted by a shiny new ball of yarn. _But it doesn't matter what I think, does it? You'll still make me go shopping for you._

_That's right, dear. _She thought back smugly.

"Bel-bel, I don't exactly know where –"

"Run along now." Bulldozing over Harry's protests was quite easy. It also was no hard task to usher him out the back door. And lock it.

She really needed those mushrooms for the risotto she was planning to make.

* * *

><p>Harry glared at the kitchen door.<p>

He immediately felt sorry because the kitchen door had nothing to do with the problems he was currently facing right now.

"I'm really sorry, Mr. Kitchen Door," he apologized. "You're just the unwitting victim of my displaced aggression. I don't know if you know what 'displaced aggression' means, but you don't mind, do you?"

Somewhat predictably, it didn't reply. The brunet sighed.

He couldn't wait to use the Time Turner so he could get his turn at tormenting his past self.

How did future-Harry even expect him to go to the general store – on foot? Using Chevy? He wasn't sure if Charlie would allow the hedonistic savage to borrow more of his daughter's things.

Oh.

The boy dug through his pockets for the bottomless pouch he always carried with him wherever he went. It contained his Phoenix and Elder Wand, Resurrection Stone, Invisibility Cloak, a photo album, Hedwig-the-stuffed-animal, and a few things he picked up here and there from his travels. Most of the stuff was crap that he couldn't give up because they reminded him of this and that. Among these sentimental shite was Sirius's old motorcycle, miniaturized like all of his things inside.

"_Engorgio."_

Voilà! Problem solved.

He supposed that he could just use a Point-Me spell or ask a random Forkian for directions to the General Store. Hurrah for Harry Potter's problem-solving skills.

One or two traumatized random strangers, a broken stop sign, and five road rage curses directed at him after ("Watch where you're going, you crazy biker!"), he skidded to a halt in front of a building that was just off the highway. He noticed that most of the establishments in Forks were like that. He supposed it made it easier for places to be located.

A small sign proclaimed the dingy old thing as the General Store. It was the only indication that it was something other than what it looked like – a miserable, dilapidated establishment held up by sheer will, _blu tack_, and some happy thoughts. It actually reminded him of the house Uncle Vernon rented when he was eleven, during the time they were evading the 'letters from no one.' It seemed so long ago now.

A car – a Volvo – was sitting in the parking lot. Harry stiffened upon recognizing it. It was Cullen's car.

Naughty Harry – the horned, fork-tailed mental version of himself armed with evil plans and a can of pink spray paint – perked up and grinned diabolically. Not-so-Naughty Harry (the one attempting to pass off as an angel by balancing a stolen halo on top of his horns and wearing _Macy's_-bought synthetic white wings) quickly beat his counterpart into submission.

No. No matter how much he dearly wanted to, he was not letting Naught Harry seek his retribution. Although…he was sure that he still had the can of glittery pink spray paint stored in his ultra super duper Doraemon pouch –

Think of what Cookie, Tinkerbell and Bunny would feel, Harry.

Gah, but there was something about the youngest Cullen boy hat rubbed him wrong. Was it his stupid bronze hair? His spooky blackish golden eyes? His weird elbows? His toes? Granted, Harry hasn't seen the other's feet yet, but they might be silently laughing at the wizard. Or something.

Hoping to distract himself from the upsurge of his vandalistic tendencies, Harry retrieved the shopping list Bel-bel gave him earlier.

Portobello mushrooms? Sea salt? Arborio rice?

…

Seriously. What was Harry-from-the-future _thinking_? He was quite certain that no humble little thing like a General Store would even have half the things in his note. Unless he apparated to Paris or Italy or to the closest civilization right now, no way in hell would he be able to get the ingredients just in time for dinner.

Great. Even his own self was having fun at his expense.

"What's the matter, young man?"

* * *

><p>Esme Cullen really had no intention to approach the stranger who looked so lost in front of the General Store. The fact that he was new to Forks was immediately noticeable – the small town never did get a lot of visitors. She was sure that everyone in Forks knew about him by now.<p>

The vampire had stopped by at the General Store for some obligatory grocery shopping. Granted, her family has never eaten anything she bought here, but they had to keep up appearances of being human. People would quickly become suspicious otherwise. They were already wary of the Cullens, since they mostly kept to themselves and rarely interacted with other residents – with the exception of Dr. Cullen, of course.

Esme didn't mind these shopping trips. There was something very relaxing about pushing a cart along the aisles and selecting products to buy. It was also an easy access to Fork's gossip network – the cashier was quite a chatterbox. That way, she would know what others were speculating about the Cullens and what dangers her family should prepare for.

She would do anything for the ones she loved.

And if the lad was one of the dangers, she had to find out as soon as possible, hadn't she?

"What's the matter, young man?"

He startled, apparently not expecting someone to sneak up on him. The caramel-haired vampire felt a bit sorry for giving him such a fright.

Now that she could see him much more clearly, she was also startled herself.

If not for his arresting green eyes and the fact that his heart was beating loudly, she might have thought that he was one of them. She was being objective by calling him beautiful. He was, in a sad and tragic kind of way. Was it his opulent dark eyes? How he carried himself? He can't be more than twenty, but she felt like a child in front of him.

Esme suddenly felt the need to pick up an artist brush and render his splendor on an easel, but she was sure that no paint color has been invented to justify the shade of his eyes. They were green with flecks of gold and…red?

His eyes were so sad.

No. The young man – more of a boy, really – whoever he was, was no danger.

Esme looked away. She couldn't bear to look in those eyes any longer.

"I'm not usually this pathetic, really," he replied as an answer to the only question she voiced out. "On my normal days, I'm just a teensy bit pitiful."

The levity in his tone eased some unknown tension inside her. She felt her lips quirk involuntarily.

"And I suppose that the General Store has something to do with your state of 'patheticalness?'"

He blinked owlishly.

"Oh, is that the noun form of pathetic? I've always thought it was 'patheticality.' Or 'pathy.' Patheticness sounds more natural, don't you think?"

The woman couldn't help it. She laughed, which made him pout adorably.

"I take that back," he mumbled, running his hands through his hair as a gesture of nervousness. "I can't believe I just dumped my linguistic dilemmas onto a complete stranger. I'm sorry about that, Ma'am."

Oh, how charmingly polite of him.

"I think it was my fault for bringing up the word," she told him. "Nothing to apologize about. Would you be more comfortable if you heaped your 'linguistic dilemmas' on someone you know? In that case, my name is Esme Cullen."

"Cullen? I'm – I mean, I think my girl friend has some schoolmates with that surname."

"If your girlfriend is attending Forks High School, then yes, she might be schoolmates with my adopted children."

The young man blushed.

"No! She's not. I mean," he stuttered. "She is studying there, but she's not my _girlfriend. _She's my friend. Who's a girl. She's also probably the reason for my current state of patheticalness."

His mumbled 'God, I'm such an idiot' was probably not meant for her to hear, but vampire senses don't miss much.

"My name's Harry, by the way. I'm sorry for being rude and not telling you earlier, Miss."

No last name, she noted.

The boy – _Harry _– looked so earnest that anyone would've probably forgiven him for anything he did. Esme Cullen just wanted to bundle him up in warm blankets, tuck him in bed with a little stuffed bear as cute as him, and keep him somewhere safe, away from the big, bad world.

Her 'mama instincts,' as Emmett had put it, were all fired up. Which was strange, since she's never felt this strongly for someone she just met.

"My friend asked me to purchase some ingredients," Harry continued gloomily. "Which is fine. But she's kind of an ambitious cook. I think she's planning to make some sort of risotto for tonight, and she probably believes that I'm going to an elite gourmet store or something. Either that, or she's pulling my leg and making fun of me as we speak."

She briefly scanned the list that he offered for her to read.

"Unfortunately, yes. The General Store doesn't have these. Your friend must be amusing herself at your cost." She clicked her tongue. "But I might be able to help you, dear."

The vampire had no idea why Alice had dumped a duffel bag at the back of the car just before she left for the General Store earlier. Now she knew.

She hadn't really checked the contents of the bag yet. Knowing the vampire seer, everything that Harry possibly needed was in the bag.

Esme retrieved it from the car and silently handed it to him.

Harry peered at it confusedly.

"No offense, Mrs. Cullen, I don't know how your bag could exactly be helpful to me right now."

Once again, she couldn't help the laugh that burst out. Her human companion didn't seem to mind.

"Not that it isn't a beautiful bag! I'm sure you're very proud of its...er...pinkness? Pinkishness? And it's cu-_cute."_

It was really amusing how he said the last word as if it was blasphemy.

She rolled her eyes inwardly. Men and their egos could be quite illogical, but it does provide entertainment for their more intelligent counterparts.

"Please call me Esme, Harry," she said warmly. "And it's not so much as the bag than the contents things inside it. Nevertheless, thank you for complimenting my fashion sense in bags."

Harry gawked upon opening it.

"Oh, no, Esme," he exclaimed, trying to push the bag feebly back to her. "I couldn't possibly accept – "

"Take it, Sweetie." Her family had no need for it. "Think of it as a favor to me."

"Er…isn't it the other way around?"

"Or you can think of it as a 'Welcome to Forks' present."

"I'm not staying long, Ma'am. I…just sort of passed by."

She had been wondering how long he was staying. Esme had hoped that she could invite him over before he left to introduce him to the other members of her family. Cullens mostly kept to themselves, yes. With him, they could make an exception. She was sure that they would have found Harry as lovely as she found him. Maybe they could have done him good, too. Maybe then his eyes wouldn't have been so sad.

The caramel-haired vampire especially wanted to introduce him to Edward. If she knew her 'youngest' adopted son correctly, maybe he wouldn't be so lonely anymore.

Pushing back her disappointment (and her botched matchmaking skills), she said, "Well then, it's an advanced farewell present, yes?"

The smile he gave her was tentative and hopeful, as if he had forgotten how to smile and was just relearning. She desperately wished that she had more time to teach him how to smile again.

"Thank you, Esme."

* * *

><p>I can't believe it's already chapter 7 and it's still on the second <em>day<em>. The next chapter would have more time change. And we're also getting closer to the Van Incident, which I'm sure is going to surprise everybody. Yay for surprises! Chapter 8 is already sitting in my handy dandy notebook, waiting for me to stop being lazy and type.

I hope my Esme is okay. I actually didn't intend for her to meet Harry so soon. Haha.

Please review!


	8. An Excessive Use of Adjectives

Hello! Is anyone still reading this? XD For those who are waiting for the next chapter, you can thank my eight-year old sister for this update. Thrice a week, she surprises me with a book that she borrows from the school library. Last Friday, she borrowed Twilight. I finally had a bit of time to write the first part of what was supposed to be chapter 8. I decided to split it up into two, and I might finish typing up the next chapter by first or second week of October. This might seem like a filler chapter, but some information about Harry would be revealed if you look closely.

Thank you to those who read, reviewed, favorited and liked this story.

Bella's mom's emails and Bella's last email directly come from the book. The rest are just crap I came up with.

I hope you enjoy reading and please review if you liked it.

* * *

><p>Chapter 8<p>

"So…Harry, is it? Harry…"

"Potter, Sir."

"Bells tells me that you came from England."

"Yes, Dad. Harry's from Surrey, Little Whinging. Small place. Really small. You wouldn't know it."

"You've come a long way from home, son. What're you doing in Arizona, of all places?"

"Dad, what is this, the Spanish Inquisition? Enough with the good cop, bad cop routine."

"Was Bells a classmate of yours?"

"_Me_, classmates with this old man? Harry's twenty five, now."

"How did you two meet, then?"

"Well…"

"Oh, for Pete's sake, Bells. Let the poor boy speak."

The 'poor boy' in question, who was perfectly content allowing 'Bella' to answer for him, looked up from his bowl of risotto to find both of his dinner companions staring at him expectantly.

"Er…that's okay, Mr Swan. Bell-bell knows me well enough to answer for me. Sometimes it feels like we're _just one person._"

_Which we literally are, right now. _Not-Bella thought to him from across the table.

_Yes, but Daddy Charlie doesn't know that, does he? _ He thought back.

"I work at the coffee shop that Bella likes to go to. Sir."

"We hit it right off, Dad." Bella reached across the table and pinched him rather painfully on the cheek. He glared. "Har-bear here gives me a cuppa on the house every time I stop by. Isn't he a cutie patootie?"

_Stop laying it on too thick, Bell-bell._

Charlie, for his part, was acting as if nothing was wrong, and that this charade of a dinner party was something that he encountered every night.

"Have you been in the States long? You haven't picked up the accent yet."

Charlie was also a master of faux passes and cringe-worthy gaucheries, and obviously, tact and subtlety were words in foreign languages to him. To be fair, this was probably the first time that Bella brought a boy home with her. Before this, he probably had only the chairs as discourse partners.

"I left England when I was seventeen, sir. Been travelling since then, but never stopping for a long time in one place," Harry replied, sticking as close to the truth as possible.

"How long are you planning to stay here?"

"_Really_, Dad? He just got here."

"Not for long, Mr. Swan," he mumbled, fiddling with his spoon absentmindedly. Delicious as the risotto was, he had lost his appetite. "I just…stopped by? I'll be out of your hair in no time."

Harry didn't know how he sounded like, but something in his quiet reply made Charlie's severe features soften.

"Call me Charlie, son. And you're welcome to stop by anytime you want."

* * *

><p>Harry jerked awake, unable to shake away the strange feeling that he was being watched.<p>

Moody would be proud of his constant vigilance, but he had learned never to discount those feelings.

A quick _Tempus_ charm showed that it was just around three o'clock in the morning. His lips quirked. The Witching Hour.

There were absolutely no witches here, thank you very much. Just a wizard. A wizard currently wearing the guise of a female muggle, so he was not sure if it counted.

_Creak. Creak._

The boy's gaze flew to the corner where the noise was coming from.

Silly Harry. There were no such things as ghos – oh wait, there were.

He wondered if Charlie's house was haunted, aside from the memories of the past creeping up the wallpaper. Maybe there was a nice ghost living in Bella's bedroom that he can talk to, or a banshee screaming silently in the living room. Or maybe a mischievous poltergeist thumping happily in the attic.

_Dear Hermione, I think I'm finally losing it. Don't roll your eyes and tell me I've lost it a long time ago. I'm so desperate to talk to anybody than myself. You know the point when you become scared to draw a breath in because the secrets might come spilling out? I even thought of migrating Myrtle to the bathroom Charlie and I share, just so I can have gloomy morning conversations with her while brushing my teeth. Do ghosts need passports or visas for haunting spot reassignments?_

_Creak. Creak._

That stupid rocking chair was making that sound again. On its own..? Oh.

The curtains, silver spectres in the light of the moon, were flapping lethargically from the draft coming in from the open window. So that was why his bloody bits were freezing to death. He must have left it open before going to bed.

Pushing his quilt aside, he put on a pair of fuzzy bunny slippers (What? He found it them dumped in the deepest recesses of Bella's closet. They were delightfully comfy) and stood up.

The window was facing the front yard. Chevy was sitting in the driveway, an enthusiastic pup waiting for its master to come out and play. Charlie's police cruiser was parked behind it, a more dignified and sedate presence.

It was a moonlit night that painted the trees and made them luminescent. The occasional wind slithered through the leaves and whispered unheard secrets around the woods that surrounded the Swan residence. The evening news said that there was a possibility that it would snow the next day, so the air was chilly.

Harry closed the window with a loud thud, wincing when the unexpected sound reverberated throughout the house. He hoped he hadn't woken up Charlie. The poor man needed his rest.

He stopped to listen for shuffling noises from the other room and breathed in relief when there were none.

After a moment's thought, he decided to close the curtains, too. He didn't need to know more secrets. He had enough on his own.

He dropped back on the bed and drew the quilt up to his chin, making sure that Hedwig was underneath so that the stuffed animal would be kept warm. He closed his eyes.

And opened them again.

Sleep was an elusive bedfellow tonight. He got up a second time, and his gaze wandered to the computer placed neatly on the desk. Renée had insisted on it to keep in touch with her daughter.

Harry had always associated computers with Dudley. On some afternoons when Piers Polkiss and and the rest of Dudley's merry friends were not around, Dudley would sit in front of the computer in his bedroom. His small, beady eyes would track something intently on the screen, with a type of focus that he didn't apply on his homework. Harry would surreptitiously watch while vacuuming Dudley's room when his cousin was maniacally blasting an alien on his computer game. Sometimes, Dudley would see him watching and would either punch him or tell on him to Aunt Petunia. Sometimes, the beached whale would be too intent on clicking the mouse (looking at the computer screen and clicking rapidly were oftentimes too much for his brain) that Harry would be able to watch in peace until Aunt Petunia would call him to prepare dinner.

At that time, Harry would have given up anything (he was a child, he didn't own much) to be able to blast an alien on Dudder's computer.

_I should make a list of dreams I realized when I no longer want them._

He wondered how Dudley was. He hadn't visited Number 4 Privet Drive since he turned seventeen. Harry didn't find any reason to.

Bella's computer was not the newest model. Charlie said that it was bought secondhand, but it still seemed more sophisticated than the one Dudley used to own.

_Maybe I can play Dudley's alien game on this computer?_

First, he had to figure out how to use it.

Waving his wand did amazingly nothing ('_Technology and magic don't mix, Harry! How many times do I have to tell you that?' – Hermione)_. After a few tries, he was able to get it up and running. That was definitely not an innuendo for anything.

He remembered that Bella had a memory stick in her bag, and after much thought, he inserted it into the correct hole.

Goofing around and clicking random stuff on the screen seemed like a good way to learn how to use it, and eventually he stumbled upon a file containing Bella's passwords. Thank Merlin. His computer skills were not yet up to Hacker Extraordinaire just yet. Although, it seemed pretty stupid of Bella to store her important info on something that could get easily lost.

There were no alien computer games, though. Only a boring card game he didn't understand.

Renée reminded him that he would be receiving her e-mails soon, so he had to check those first. No, there was nothing wrong with reading the e-mails of a seventeen-year old girl. Nothing.

Bella's account contained a grand total of three emails – all from her mother. Isabella must have been really sociable.

**Bella.**

**Write me as soon as you get in. Tell me how your flight was. Is it raining? I miss you already.**

**I'm almost finished packing for Florida, but I can't find my pink blouse. Do you know where I put it?**

**Phil says hi.**

**Mom.**

Her pink blouse? Harry had no freakin' clue.

**Bella.**

**Why haven't you emailed me yet? What are you waiting for?**

**Mom.**

Talk about impatient. That was probably Harry's fault, though.

**Isabella.**

**If I haven't heard from you by 5:30p.m. today I'm calling Charlie.**

Oops. Seeing that it was already three a.m. of the next day, Bella's mom must be pretty incensed. Charlie didn't mention anything during dinner, but that was probably because of meeting Harry.

Well, he guessed he should reply to Bella's mom soon before she freaked out more.

**Dear Mrs. Dwyer.**

**I have received your urgent correspondence and implore your forgiveness for the lateness of my**

**response. The inclement weather of Forks has not been auspicious, but I have arrived in**

**good spirits. I have no knowledge pertaining to the current location of your garment. Mayhap**

**it would be prudent to purchase another one of its resemblance? It is my fervent hope**

**to acquire your prompt dispatch. I send my cordial regards to your spouse.**

**Truly yours,**

**Isabella Swan.**

Harry stared.

What the fuck was he, an applicant for a job position? Too bloody formal. He sounded like a pompous old fart. Very dodgy.

**Hey, Renée, my darling bosom friend-mother from whom I inherited**

**my mitochondrial DNA! I arrived well-and-good in little ole'**

**Forks and met some of the Forkites in school. Apparently, indoor**

**plumbing does exist here, so my situation is not as dire as you**

**redicted. I'm not exactly sure where your funky shirt is**

(_seriously, pink? What is up with women?)_

**But maybe it's in the last place where you put it? Lol**

**Bella.**

(Harry doesn't know what lol meant. Lots of love? It seemed like a good place to put an "lol")

Scratch that.

**Mom.**

**Everything is great. Of course it's raining. I was waiting for something to write about.**

**School isn't bad, just a little repetitive. I met some nice kids who sit by me at lunch.**

(maybe "_nice" _was stretching the truth a bit...and they probably won't be sitting by him after what happened)

**Your blouse is at the dry cleaners – you were supposed to pick it up Friday.**

(he hoped to hell that it was true)

**Charlie bought me a truck, can you believe it? I love it. It's old, but really sturdy**

**which is good, you know, for me.**

**I miss you, too. I'll write again soon, but I'm not going to check my e-mail every five minutes.**

**Relax, breathe. I – l love you.**

**Bella.**

There. That seemed like something that Bella would write. He clicked send and logged out.

Well. Using the computer was not as fantastical as he thought it was.

_Creak. Creak._

Harry stood up and plopped down on the old, rickety rocking chair. A wave of his hand summoned the quilt and Hedwig from the bed.

_Creak. Creak. Creak. Creak._

The chair was surprisingly comfy.

He drifted off.

* * *

><p>School for the next few days was hell. Everybody avoided him in fear of being molested and contracting his weirdness. People in hallways where he usually walked would make the sign of the cross whenever he passed by. He even heard in passing that they were planning to contact an exorcist to banish his unholy desires. Seriously. Forkites needed a new hobby.<p>

Harry didn't mind their avoidance. He preferred being alone.

Cookie (Harry didn't really know his name) made school life bearable. Harry made it a point to bug him as much as possible during History class. Cookie was amazingly knowledgeable about American History, almost as if he had lived through it. He was also nice enough to whisper the answers when the teacher called on Bella.

Plus, Cookie had an astounding collection of coloring materials (_highlighters, _Hale insisted) that he generously allowed Bella to borrow. Cookie used them to highlight his history book (Harry had a feeling that Hale was highlighting _mistakes _and not important information). Whatever. Harry used them to draw Cookie eating cookies on the margins of his textbooks. He proudly showed it to Hale who crumpled it immediately.

Harry saw him furtively put the doodle in his bag, so he guessed Cookie must have liked it after all. He vowed to draw his new friend more, even if it meant sacrificing more pages from his book.

The boy was sitting by his lonesome self in the cafeteria when someone sat across him.

"You're stealing my man," Alice complained, plunking down her food tray on the table with exquisite grace.

Harry stared at her, then at the Cullen table where she is supposed to sit. The White Queen, Muscle Man, Cookie and Sullen Cullen were sitting in frigid silence, trying (and failing) to ignore the prodigal Cullen who jumped tables.

In fact, everybody in the cafeteria was doing the same thing.

Alice Cullen never interacted with others outside her family quite so intimately. None of the Cullen-Hale clan did, apparently.

"I'm sorry, what?" he asked.

"Jasper."

"Who?" The only Jasper he knew was one of Mrs. Figg's cats. Nasty little bugger.

"Jasper. Jasper Hale? Does it ring a bell?"

"You're barking up the wrong tree, lady. I don't know anybody named Jasper Ha-oh." Realization dawned. "Cookie."

"Yes. Cookie." If Alice thought that she was able to suppress her snicker, then she had another thing coming.

'Jasper' shuddered. Maybe it was just Harry's imagination.

"You've been borrowing his 64 Crayola crayons to doodle yet you don't know his name? He's very protective of his Razzle Dazzle Rose, by the way."

Oops.

That was the crayon that Harry broke.

"Uh…names didn't really come up in our conversations? Our friendship is one that transcends boundaries. We don't need to know each other's first names to know that we are kindred spirits, fated by the stars that dominated the night skies at the moment of our birth."

"Jasper was born in the morning."

"The sun is a star, yes?" He learned as much in Astronomy. "If he was born in the morning, then I probably was, too. And it's not as if Cookie knows my real first name."

There was no way that he would know.

Alice rolled her eyes. It was the first authentic human-like gesture Harry had seen her make.

"I hate to be rude, but what exactly are you doing here, Alice? Your sister looks pretty pissed at me."

Cullen waved a dismissive hand.

"Don't worry about her. That's just her default expression. It's pretty easy to tell if she's in her super bitch mode. Right now, she's just being a bitch."

A plastic fork snapped across the room.

Harry looked at the Cullen table again.

Huh.

"There are five of you today," he blurted out before he can stop himself.

"You noticed?" Alice seemed oddly delighted for some reason.

Harry decided not to ask, for the sake of his sanity. Or what was left of it.

"It's kind of hard not to. Jessica couldn't shut up about it. I'm sick of hearing about 'Eddie's enchanting voice or his perfect hair or God forbid it, his cute, flawless, crescent moon-shaped cuticles or something."

The pixie-like girl laughed.

Harry backtracked, feeling himself reddening in embarrassment. Damn Bella's fair complexion! "No offense to your brother. I'm sure his cuticles are adorable. Don't – don't tell him I said that!"

She was still laughing.

"I'll just stop talking now," he mumbled sourly.

"Oh, please do go on," she encouraged in between laughter. "Do they talk about his "dazzling hair"? His "sweet breath"? His "glorious face"?"

"You forgot to mention his "smoldering topaz" eyes. I heard that his "bronze hair" is to die for, so try not to touch his hair or anything. Even if you're a close family member."

Alice Cullen made giggling an art form. There was no way to make giggling graceful, but somehow she pulled it off.

"I think that rumor was started by Edward," she admitted. "He's very protective of his hair. Nobody gets to touch it. One girl tried once."

"What happened?"

She recoiled in horror upon remembering the answer to his question.

"You're better off not knowing," she assured him.

At the Cullen table, Edward ran a hand through his hair, as if he had heard their conversation.

"As much as I enjoy this stimulating conversation and your lovely company, Alice, I don't think you were here to listen to me making fun of your brother. Why are you here again?"

"Oh, yeah!" She perked up. "Why am _I_ here again?"

"If that is an existential question, you're only here for a filler chapter," Harry informed her seriously. "Someone is making a fanfic of my life, but they couldn't decide what to do next. They needed a minor character for comic relief."

Alice pouted.

"That's not fair! I should be a major character, too! I'm too cool to be in the sidelines."

"I hate to break it to you, lady, but we just met one week ago. I don't know you that well. Therefore you're a minor character."

"What was it again?" she asked in a mocking tone. "Our friendship is one that transcends boundaries. We don't need a lifetime to know that we are BBFs. We are kindred spirits…blah, blah, blah…fated by the stars…night skies…birthdays, etc., etc., etc."

"I hate it when somebody uses my wiseass lines to myself," he complained to her. "At least paraphrase and cite it properly, would you?"

The Cullen girl grinned smugly.

"And, I think you were here to complain and to treat me as Quality Control? Something about stealing Cookie?"

The smaller of the two smoothed out a crinkled sheet of paper and slid it across the table. The boy picked it up gingerly, raising an eyebrow upon seeing it.

It was a picture of Cookie being cannibalized by gigantic Chips Ahoy's (cannibalism was possible between them because they were both of the same species, so sue him). The doodle was by far his most favorite. Harry admired the blending of colors, remembering that Fuzzy Wuzzy, Jazzberry Jam and Mauvelous were responsible for the majestic gore of his masterpiece.

"What's wrong with it?" he asked warily. "Did it make Cookie cry? I promise to stop my budding artistry career if it made him cry."

"You can keep your 'budding artistry career.' Jasper doesn't have tear ducts. But why is it that he likes your kitsch doodles better than my avant garde masterpieces? I can forge Monet or Dali well enough to sell on the black market, but it's your stupid Cookie sketches that he frames and hangs on our bedroom wall."

"You're jealous of my 'stupid Cookie sketches?' They're _not_ stupid."

"They are, but that's not the point. He's spending a lot of time with you. He has never done that before."

Harry now sort of probably understood what 'stealing my man' meant.

"Cookie is a wonderful friend. Don't worry about competition from me. He's not my…er? type."

The interested glint in her eyes brightened. "What's your type, then?"

"Human-shaped? Not that Coo-Jasper isn't human shaped! He totally is! But – but –"

The bell-like sound of Alice's laughter drew more attention to their table. He slumped lower in his seat.

"I think I now realize why Jasper likes you. You're adorable," the girl cooed. It looked like she wanted to pinch his cheeks and pet his hair, so he inched his seat farther away from her. She laughed again. "Do you mind if I keep this Cookie sketch?"

Not-Bella shrugged.

"Be my guest. Ask Cookie first, though. He might really cry if you took it without his permission."

"That's not a problem." The drawing was carefully tucked in between the pages of a notebook. "He wouldn't notice that I borrowed it permanently."

"...Okay? At least I know whom to ask if I need to read page 279 of my History textbook. I think that one was in the chapter about American Civil War."

Tinkerbell was still staring at him in fascination, so she probably wasn't done bugging him yet.

He untwisted the cap of his thermos nervously, unnerved by the number of eyes tracked on both of them. There were talking in low voices, and he was sure that his nosy schoolmates couldn't eavesdrop.

"Who's Harry, Bella?"

_Harry _blinked.

Alice had a habit of asking questions out of the blue that caught people off guard. It was most likely deliberate on her part.

"I'm going to pretend that I understand the context of that question and ignore the fact that 'Harry' is a common name and I probably know five people who are named Harry. I assume you meant Harry, the one who met Mrs Cullen?"

"Yup!" Alice nodded, as if he had answered the mystery of life. "How was the risotto?"

"Fantastic. Although, Mrs Cullen didn't have to do that. I can repay – "

"How dare you, Isabella 'I-don't-know-your-middle-name-yet' Swan! Don't say the 'p' word to me. That was a_ gift_!"

"Technically, the word started with an 'r' if I put an affix on pay-"

Pixie shook a finger at him threateningly.

"I know what you're doing. Don't think that I can be distracted from my ultimate goal: Harry."

"Why do you want to know?"

"Why do you always answer a question with another question?"

"Whatever is it that you're planning," he warned, shaking his soda straw at her. "Drop it right now. Harry doesn't need to be involved in your nefarious schemes. He gets into enough trouble on his own. Leave him alone."

He was channeling his inner Hermione. Go him.

The only real girl on the Swan-Cullen table pouted.

"Is he your boyfriend?"

"Why does everybody think that I am romantically involved with him?" he lamented. "First, my dad. Then Mrs Cullen. And now, you. For the record, we're not."

Selfcest was creepy.

"Esme, my mom, really liked him," she said, poking her uneaten salad with a fork. "From how she described him, Harry is like little lost Bambi who needs his mommy. No offense to your friend."

Great. Now even random strangers felt sorry for him.

Alice leaned forward, her frame buzzing with intent.

"I want to meet him, too. When do you think he'll –"

"Oh, good heavens, look at the time!" Harry stood up, shouldering his knapsack and sweeping up his lunch tray with one hand. "It looks like I have to…go. Yes. Pop quiz in Biology, need to study for it. Toodles, dear!"

The boy left as quickly as humanly possible, eager to avoid answering more questions.

He was never good at keeping track of his lies.

* * *

><p>All the adjectives used to describe Edward (except for the cuticle-related ones) were lifted from the Twilight Saga. Meyer used a lot of perfect-amazing-flawless-beautiful-etc to describe him. I mean, seriously.<p>

I probably won't be following the Twilight timeline and facts faithfully (please don't subject me to the torture of reading Twilight again), but you might recognize some major events - like the lab encounter of Edward and Bella and the Van Incident on the next chapter.


	9. The Van Incident - Harry's Style

¡Hola! ¿Cómo estáis? I know, I know. I'm a big fat liar since I've told all of you that I would update this by October of last year. I have a different calendar, okay? My October is apparently March. Please take this longer-than-usual chapter as a peace offering?

This chapter is for _SparkedSnarkedFemme_, my new friend in ffnet. Hello, dearie! Cheers! :)

**Warning:** Slashy things ahead. I'm also bumping up the rating for this chapter. If that bothers you, there's always the back button.

Some slashy things will be explained below. So, if there's anything that puzzles you, you might find the answer there. Or try googling it.

I don't necessarily share all the opinions of the characters in this story.

Enjoy!

* * *

><p>Chapter 9: The Van Incident - Harry's style<p>

Harry arrived at the classroom before anybody else. He made a beeline to the table where he usually sat, glancing askance at the window. It was still snowing, and everyone on their lunch break took delight in hurling balls of white towards one another. It made him smile. Back in his first year at Hogwarts, Fred and George used to charm snowballs to bounce off of Quirrell's turban in their quest to find out what was underneath it. They never succeeded ('The-Boy-Who-Lived' had the dubious honor of that), but Harry had always been the unsuspecting victim who had received facefuls of snow when he passed too near to the DADA professor. He had an inkling that it was no fluke – no one was safe against the mischievous twins.

_Harry's To-Do List: #1. Find somebody to have a snowball fight with. The more the merrier._

He wondered if Cookie or Alice would agree to play with him.

People gradually trickled inside the classroom in groups of twos and threes. It was the first snowfall for the year, and they were planning to have a snowball fight after class. Harry wished he could join in the fun, but seeing as nobody asked him, he didn't bother asking for an invitation.

Mr. Banner was setting up microscopes and boxes of slides for each table. Fuck, it was just his luck that there was indeed a pop quiz today. He had one in English earlier, and it was about a freaky old book that he could never recall the title of. It was much too depressing and everybody predictably died in the end. He only remembered the general events because Bella really liked it and used to tell the story a lot when she stopped by the cafe before.

He was listening with half an ear to the teacher's instructions when he felt the chair beside him shift. He stiffened.

"Hello."

Edward Cullen sat next to him, acting as if it was a daily occurrence to greet his seatmate.

It wasn't. Cullen had been gone for a week. Not that Harry noticed or cared or anything.

"Are you talking to me?" he asked incredulously. Nobody was paying them any attention, thank Merlin.

Edward made a show of looking around.

"I see nobody else here."

"You're in a classroom full of twenty-plus students," Harry deadpanned. He was a little ticked that out of the blue, Cullen suddenly decided that it was cool talking to him after all of the bad blood between them.

(Disregarding the fact that before this one-sided conversation, Harry and Edward had interacted about…three times.)

Not-Bella turned his gaze back to the board, pretending that his wayward seatmate didn't exist.

Sullen Cullen must be ignoring Harry's attempts to ignore him because he continued talking.

"My name is Edward Cullen. I didn't have the chance to introduce myself last week. You must be Bella Swan."

"Gee, how did you know?"

"I…get the feeling that you don't like me that much," Cullen said ruefully, shrugging his shoulders as if it would somehow endear him to Harry.

"What gave you that idea?" Harry shot back through gritted teeth.

What the hell, he and Cullen were BBF's now? Last time, the guy could barely stand him.

"I think we got off on the wrong foot. I'd like to start over again."

"Did Cookie – I mean, Jasper – or Alice put you up to this?" Harry demanded. It seemed like something those two would do. Perhaps. He wasn't sure? He had only known them for about a week, after all.

Cullen seemed surprised, as if the question didn't occur to him.

"No, no conspiracy theories involved, I promise. I come in peace out of my own volition. No sibling coercion required."

Huh. Cullen thought he was being cute.

Mr. Banner passed the box of slides to their table before Harry could utter a reply. The lab assignment had something to do with 'cell division,' which Harry knew jackshit about.

"It's too bad about the snow, isn't it?"

Harry had to hand it to the boy. He was nothing but persistent.

His small talk was still bullshit, though, but Harry, because of his infinite goodness and endless patience, would humor him.

Just this once.

"Yeah," he answered. Apparently, Not-Bella also sucked at small talk.

Cullen started identifying the… squiggles on the slides while Harry supervised. He was very good at supervising.

The wizard scrutinized the boy next to him, the latter doing his absolute best to overlook the blatant staring.

"You were a jerk last Monday."

Edward peered up at him, taking his focus away from the microscope lens.

"Yeah, I was."

"Maybe not the biggest jerk I've met, but close."

"How…close?"

Harry sighed.

"Possibly in the top 100 worst jerks ever. Not counting rude waiters and snot-nosed, spoiled, stuck-up brats."

"I…didn't mean to be a jerk?"

"Your sister kinda implied it was because of the hair."

Edward looked taken aback.

"Don't take anything that Alice says at face value. Especially her 'predictions.'"

The brown-haired girl couldn't hold back her snicker.

"Seriously. Does everyone in your family talk about one another behind their backs? You talk about Alice. Alice talks about you and Cookie. Cookie talks about you and Alice. Is it a Cullen-Hale thing?"

Maybe that's what family meant. You could bash one another to your heart's content, secure in the knowledge that at the end of the day, you would still be family.

"I really don't know," Cullen replied slowly, as if measuring his words and seeing if they all fit together. Out of all the Cullens that Harry had talked to, Edward seemed to be the most careful. Somber? Sullen?

"We never had the chance to slander one another to people outside the family."

"Somehow, I feel oddly touched that you all participated in familial slandering in the vicinity of my presence."

"Yes. You're special."

Harry opened his mouth for a witty repartee, but realized that Edward actually meant it. He flushed, ignoring the flutter in his stomach. It was most likely gas, courtesy of his lunch burrito.

"You should hear what Cookie says about you. I feel like I know you already."

The smile curling Cullen's mouth grew a few millimeters wider.

"Really? What does he say about me?"

Not-Bella mockingly placed a finger on his chin, pretending to be deep in thought.

"Are you sure I won't be violating the Cullen Code of Familial Slander by telling you?"

"We haven't had the chance to write a Code yet. If we had, it probably won't matter because of all the loopholes and the fine print that everyone would insist to include."

"Fine, if you say so. First, Cookie told me that you squeeze the toothpaste tube from the bottom."

"What? Why would that even matter? That troglodyte doesn't even brush his teeth."

"Second, you're a jerk."

"I thought we established that already?"

"Yes, but you're just not any jerk. In Cookie's words, you're a 'mopey jerk who listens to teenage girl punk rock or to some D.O.M. classical tripe.'"

"D.O.M.?"

"Short for Dirty Old Man."

"Shows what he knows," Cullen scoffed. "Jasper's a-an uncultured egghead whose musical preferences are limited to country music that only the dead would listen to. And maybe angry housewives contemplating mariticide."

"_An uncultured egghead?"_

"I couldn't think of a better insult," Edward admitted sheepishly.

Harry decided to take pity on the other boy and decided not to tease him that _My Little Pony _show was not a good source of insults.

"Cookie complains that you sound like dying cat when you sing in the shower."

"Why is Jasper so obsessed with my hygienic rituals?"

"Maybe it's an unconscious desire to see you naked?"

Bella's companion gave a slight shudder of disgust which made her laugh.

"And I think _you _have a clear and conscious desire to drive me insane. What does Jasper know about singing? He wouldn't recognize high culture from low even if it bit him on the…on the….uhm, tush."

"Tush? Dude, you gotta work on your trash talk." The wizard-in-disguise felt a tiny bit sorry for this guy. "No wonder your siblings pick on you so much. You make it so damn easy for them."

"I suppose you're much better at trash talking?" Edward asked sarcastically. He absentmindedly closed the workbook after writing the answer to the fifth slide.

Yay, no help from Harry. Thank Merlin for Cullen. The wizard would've bombed that lab assignment badly.

"Hell, no. And, I should probably tell you that I'd tell Cookie what you said about him. To be fair and all."

"I believe it's not your stance on fairness and equality that compels you to divulge the content of our conversation to him, but your desire to see us duel to death at dawn for our honor, with blazing pistols drawn and all."

"I'm so proud of you, Cullen," Bella said dramatically, pulling out a kerchief to dab at her crocodile tears. "You know me very well after just five minutes of conversation. But I hate waking up at dawn, so can you just duel in the afternoon? And instead of pistols, I'd like it to be a mud wrestle."

_What? _Late night browsing through…shady websites said that it was a good idea.

Edward muttered something like… "I can't believe I'm having this conversation." It seemed like he didn't intend for Harry to hear it, so he made no comment.

What the hell, he and Cullen were having a civil talk now? One week ago, Emoboy seemed like he wanted to rip Harry's throat off and feast on his innards.

The Cullens were like…fungi. Or _Mimbulus mimbletonia._ The grew on you whether you like it or not, and when they do, they were so hard to scrape off. Harry should never let his guard down around them.

"So." Cullen said, his gaze intent. "Are we okay, now? Are we…'cool'?"

Somehow, his bronze-haired seatmate using teen slang sounded wrong.

"Yeah, Cullen. We're cool."

Maybe, Edward Cullen was not as bad as Harry thought he was.

"By the way, Bella. Do you really think my cuticles are 'cute and adorable'?"

Scratch the last thought. He was _worse._

And he needed to seek revenge since Alice was such a blabbermouth.

* * *

><p>A few days later, Harry glanced around furtively before entering a corridor to see if a Cullen was going to pop up out of nowhere. The <em>Mission Impossible <em>theme song was blaring through his earphones, which he thought was rather appropriate for the occasion.

The wizard wasn't really avoiding the Cullens per se – that was next to freaking impossible in a school as small as this. Everybody met everybody else at least 2.5 times a month (an alumna actually made a survey about it).

The Cullens he had talked to were a riot and almost as crazy as he was. That wasn't the problem. The problem was that he didn't want to talk to them because he liked talking to them too much. Hermione would have told him how bonkers it was. Complete with diagrams and flowcharts.

Someone jostled his shoulder.

"Watch were you're going, _Isab__ella._" Lauren sneered at her, before walking away with all of her tittering little friends.

The corridor was wide enough for an elephant (well, maybe an undernourished baby elephant) to walk through with some difficulty, so Harry didn't know what crawled up Lauren's ass and died. The cheerleader had been bugging him since day one, even if he had barely said anything to her. Oftentimes, he would see her watching him with a peculiar look on her face if she thought he wasn't looking. Her frustrated expression would quickly morph into anger before she would huff and look away.

Teenagers. He would never understand them.

"Don't mind Lauren, Bella. She's not exactly angry at you."

A girl he recognized as Angela Weber was leaning on the locker next to his. She smiled.

"Really? I didn't notice. I thought she was_ totally overjoyed_ to see me."

Angela peered at him through her spectacles.

"Are you being sarcastic?"

"Gee, what gave you that idea?"

"You're not doing a good job at it, Bella."

Harry was crushed. He had studied really hard on being sarcastic.

"I'm not?"

"Yep. Reading 'How to be a Teenager for Dummies' does not help. You should get a refund on the book."

"You know about…"

"I saw you reading it during English class."

"I thought that the chapter on sarcasm was rather brilliant." Harry defended, dialing in the combination of his locker and dumping his heavy books inside.

Angela scoffed, flipping the pages of the book she was holding idly.

"My cat could do better."

"I should just get sarcasm lessons from your cat, then."

Weber laughed good-naturedly. She appeared to be a nice girl, if a bit shy. This was the first time he was able to talk to her after the cafeteria incident. She kind of reminded him of Hermione with less bushy hair because she always had a book in hand. She was very smart, too.

Not-Bella retrieved his thermos from his satchel. He quickly unscrewed the lid and took a gulp, all the while being aware of Angela staring at him unabashedly.

"What?" he asked suspiciously.

"Is it true that you drink the blood of virgins to keep yourself young and that you keep the blood in your thermos?"

He sputtered, his drink going down the wrong pipe.

It was official. Forkites were indeed a different type of crazy altogether.

"Are _you _being sarcastic?"

Angela shrugged apologetically. "That's one of the theories that Jessica has about you right now. After all, everyone has noticed that you carry that thing around and drink very often. I think you just have a throat that gets parched easily, but Jessica had to jump to the craziest conclusion ever."

"I guess nothing exciting happens around here, if people have to speculate about my drinking habits."

"Too true. Jessica and Lauren were talking about your thermos for about a week now. I think they were planning to steal it to see for themselves. I just thought that you'd like to know."

Harry silently passed the container to Angela, much to her surprise.

"No blood here. Virgin or otherwise. It's a…special nutrient drink I formulated for myself to meet my dietary needs. Like a protein shake, but with a shittier taste." That could be a jingle for a commercial.

Angel sniffed it cautiously.

"It – smells like flowers." Before he could stop her, she took a sip. "Tastes like flowers, too. Icky ones."

The boy snatched it back.

"Woman, are you crazy? Don't go drinking other people's po-juices without permission! I could have mono, for all you know."

Harry wasn't really worried about what the polyjuice would do to her. He had a contact in an apothecary in Florence who made some modifications on the potion to make it last longer and to only be effective to him.

"I'm sorry about that, Bells. Sometimes I get so curious that I couldn't stop myself."

"Well, you should remember that curiosity always kills the cat. Even sarcastic ones."

"Maybe I should also read that 'How to be a Teenager for Dummies' book. You're better at it than I thought."

"Thank you. I'll lend it to you once I'm done with it." Not-Bella curtsied for good measure. He looked around. "I didn't know we were locker buddies."

"No we aren't. This isn't my locker," Angela replied, indicating the one she was leaning on. "I just like standing here while reading and waiting for my first class."

"What are you reading?"

Angela blushed and tried to hide her book behind her back.

"Nothing. You wouldn't be interested in it."

Too late. Harry was mighty curious about it now.

"No fair. I let you drink my beverage. You should return the favour and let me see the book."

Angela was doing her best to dodge his arms, but Harry wasn't the youngest seeker in a century for nothing. He plucked the book easily from her grasp.

"Hey, give it back!"

It was a comic book.

"It's just a comic book, why are you so flustered about it?"

"Oh, really? Then try reading it. Or else give it back."

"Fat chance."

He opened it.

* * *

><p>'<em>Stuff me full with that big, fat co-…fill me with…'<em>

'_Your filthy pussy is dripping with my come, boy…'_

'_Look what you did…'_

'_My dirty little slut needs to be taught a lesson…'_

'_Harder! Deeper! ..Oh,…oh…'_

* * *

><p>Angela watched her new friend's complexion invent new shades of red, the color getting darker and darker as her eyes roamed around the pages. It was quite impressive, actually.<p>

Her gaze dropped back to the book in question once she realized that Bella would be out of it for a while.

Oh, that book! That perfectly filthy, amazing book! It always got her hot and bothered to read about _semes_ getting all alpha and toppy for their slutty, needy _ukes_. Thank you artists for creating such amazing _yaoi_ works!

People thought she was weird. She knew that. The last boy who took interest in her got scared off because she said that she 'wanted to top the hell out of that cute, twink ass.' She didn't have the right equipment for it, but by god would she find a way. Pegging was invented for a reason. It wasn't the boy's fault that he was blessed by the ass gods and gave him such a plush one. He was a pretty thing with long legs and a bum waiting to be spanked.

She caught Edward Cullen glancing their way curiously. Now, that boy had such marvellous potential to be a dom! She sighed dreamily, feeling her imagination go into overdrive. He would be the strong and silent seme, protective and possessive of his sub at the same time.

Who to pair him with though…

His sub would have to be as beautiful as him. Maybe a blackhaired waif to complement his bronze looks. Eyes that are equally compelling as his golden ones, maybe in a different color. Turquoise. Or emerald. His hypothetical sub would have some dark, mysterious past, and his dom would help him forget the hurt with his hot, hard…

Cullen was looking at her. If she didn't know better, she would have said that he looked mortified. Whatever.

Angela added another condition to Edward Cullen's destined mate: he would have to be as weird as him.

"Wh-wha-what. What is_ this?_"

The bespectacled girl turned back to her companion.

"It's called yaoi," she replied nonchalantly. "A Japanese comic style centered around romantic relationships among guys. With lots of hot sex and usually no plot whatsoever. But the sex more than makes up for the lack of it."

"And people actually read this sh…stuff?" Bella held out the book upside down, cocking her head sideways in bewilderment.

"Oh yes! There's quite a fanbase for it."

"Are you sure we're old enough to read this?" Bella whispered, as if the police were gonna appear from behind the lockers and the garbage bins to arrest them and lock them up for reading illicit materials.

The other girl shrugged. "Who cares."

"How does it fit?" Bella asked, scandalized. Her friend leaned in to look.

She was pointing to a picture depicting one of the guys…preparing his equipment for ravishment, so to speak.

"Same way as doing it with a girl, I suppose. Only with a smaller hole. And lots of lube. Who cares? It's hot."

"It looks _painful._"

"The line between pain and pleasure is a very thin one, my friend. That guy's having fun. Trust me."

The new girl in Forks was still looking at her skeptically. Oh dear, maybe Angela should have shown her something tamer. More vanilla. Bella looked like her brain got fried.

Once the shock wore off, the brunette began to flip the pages again, this time more inquisitively. Angela smirked, envisioning future conversations with her new friend about canes, collars, whips, bondages...

She was so gonna enjoy corrupting her new friend.

"Cocks aren't supposed to look like this," Bella said, pointing to a picture of one of the guys'…er…majestic proportions.

"I suppose you're an expert on that sort of thing?" Angela raised an eyebrow.

"No! I've only seen one. My-, in, uhm-in my Biology textbook." Swan coughed. "It was considerably smaller than this. But not by much! Only a bit, you know? It was better and more vivid than the one in your book."

"You're getting awfully defensive about a picture in your textbook," Angela commented wryly.

"I-I am? Haha… , of course I'm not. I just like for fiction to stick close to reality, if you know what I mean? Hahaha."

"Bella, Bella, Bella." Her apprentice had a lot of things to learn. "Remember when our English teacher said that there are times when readers should willingly suspend their disbelief and just enjoy the story?"

"I'm pretty sure that Mr. Mason wasn't talking about phallic proportions when he said that," she retorted belligerently. The other girl paused, brow crinkling in concentration while studying something that Angela recognized as the 'Shower Scene.'

"Angela?"

"Yes, Bella?"

"When this guy says that he's gonna fuck the other guy until he feels it in his throat, he doesn't really mean it, right? He's being hyperbolic? Willing suspension of disbelief and all?"

Angela Weber's leer grew wider.

* * *

><p>"You look traumatized."<p>

Harry dropped to his seat wordlessly.

"Are all girls strange, or is it just the water in this place?"

Edward's gaze darted around uncertainly.

"I wouldn't know," he replied, puzzled by the question. "I presumed you would know better than I."

"I wouldn't have asked you if I knew, Cullen. What's that supposed to mean?"

"I apologize for stating the obvious, but it's difficult not to notice that you're a girl," Cullen pointed out delicately.

Oh, yeah.

"So?"

"Shouldn't you know if girls are strange seeing as, well, you _are _one?"

"That's shitty logic, Cullen. Shouldn't you know if boys are strange seeing as you are one, too?"

"Is that a trick question? Are you trying to make me act like a jerk again so that you don't have to talk to me?"

"'Course not. I like talking to you." Harry blinked. Merlin's mildewed trousers, he actually meant that.

Judging by the slight smile edging around Cullen's lips, he probably realized that, too.

"Who's gonna do all of Mr. Banner's lab assignments if I scared you away?" Harry added hastily. No need for Edward to get a swelled head or anything.

"So you only like me because of Science? I'm hurt." Edward was still answering the workbook, so Harry figured he wasn't that offended. "Do you like Jasper only for his brain, too?"

"And also for his crayons. Don't forget his badass crayon collection."

"What brought up the girl question?" Edward asked.

"I talked to Angela Weber this morning."

"Ah, so you finally encountered 'Weird Weber.'"

"You know her?"

"Who doesn't?"

"Why do they call her Weird Weber? She seems pretty sweet."

"I'm surprised you haven't figured out why, seeing as you've talked to her."

Edward wrote something on the textbook in his freakishly neat handwriting, and Harry idly wondered what type of font he was using. Harry himself was very fond of _Chicken Scratch_, but if Edward's penmanship was a font, its name would probably be something ostentatious. _Cullen Corsiva. Edward Narrow. Edwardian Script. _Oh, wait. The last one was real.

"I also talk to you, but I still don't know what's weird about you."

"Ouch. Should I be worried that you won't like me anymore once you've discovered what's peculiar about me?"

"Nah. I told you I liked you, didn't I? Stop making me repeat it."

Edward's smile, the brunet decided, was a bit like the sun. It rose slowly but surely, and it was brightest at its widest.

Merlin. Those _yaoi _books must've rotten his brain for him to come up with crap like that.

_Harry Potter, think manly thoughts! _Dirty, smelly gym socks. Unwashed, hairy armpits. Sweaty, stinky wifebeaters. Tarzan in his sexy loincloth and nothing else. Rawr!

Cullen was looking at him strangely.

"Is there something wrong?" Not-Bella asked.

"Sometimes, your thoughts…"Cullen muttered, rubbing his temples wearily.

Harry shrugged.

"Nevertheless," Edward added, closing the workbook with the air of a job well done. Harry marveled that the other boy can use big words like 'nevertheless' without sounding like a pretentious arse. "No matter how – unusual Angela Weber's proclivities might be, I believe she can be a good friend to have."

"I think so, too. She's loads better than the girls in her group, anyway."

Even if Angela did have peculiar preferences.

A pause.

"Be that as it may," Edward said, trying (and failing) for nonchalance. "I did our labwork singlehandedly. I also offered counsel as a well-meaning friend. I made amends for my unintentionally spiteful behavior during our first meeting. I have been an exemplary acquaintance, much to my knowledge."

"Spit it out, Cullen. Spare me your haranguing and get to the point."

Pft. Harry also knew big words, too.

"Who's your favorite Cullen now? May I presume that -"

The boy-in-disguise scoffed.

"Don't push your luck, Edward Cullen. Cookie's crayons are still pretty cool."

* * *

><p><em>"I've never seen him before! Isn't he hot?"<em>

_"So dreamy!"_

_"I wonder who he is. A new student?"_

_"Look at those eyes! They're so bright that you could see the color from a distance!"_

Not-Bella yawned. It had been another sleepless night filled with confusing dreams for him. He barely spared a glance at the girls who were talking loudly in the corridor as he made his way to his locker.

"Good morning, Bells! Isn't this a fine, beautiful day?" Angela chirped, clutching one of her infernal books again as she approached him. "Have you ever seen the sun shine so brightly?"

Harry looked up at the sky. It was overcast.

"Hey, Angela." He yawned again.

"You look sleepy. Did you pull an all-nighter just to read the books I lent you?" The bespectacled girl teased.

Merlindammit, he couldn't sleep last night so he ended up reading through them all. Not that he was going to admit it to her. He still had things such as pride and dignity, even though he forgot that he had them more often than not.

"Which one did you like best? Personally, I think that the teacher-student one was a bit cliché, but the art is stunning. It's in _color_, what more can you say? The one about secret royalty has an amazing story, but-"

Seeing as Angela wouldn't stop hounding him unless he responded, Harry cut in.

"The one about the virgin homoerotica writer was good," he confessed. Pride and dignity were so down the drain. "Happy now?"

Angela squealed. "I like that one the best, too! Haha, I knew you couldn't resist reading them. Keep the books for a while. I've got lots more you can borrow."

Harry absolutely wasn't looking forward to it.

No, really. He wasn't.

Okay. Maybe just a little bit.

Who could blame him? Aside from browsing through the shady websites, bullying Cookie, and leeching off of Sullen Cullen, there wasn't a lot of sources of fun in this area.

"But that's not what I really wanted to ask you right now." Angela drew closer to her friend. "Have you seen…With the….In the…?"

"No, Angela, I do not speak ellipsis, so I don't have an idea what you're talking about. Please fill in the blanks with the missing words."

Maybe girls were secretly telepathic or something, and they didn't have to speak in full sentences.

"The hottie outside! With the badass motorcycle! In the parking lot!"

"And I care, why?" Not-Bella queried dryly.

"Everybody's been talking about him," she gushed, ignoring his question. "He's been standing in the parking lot with his bike for more than an hour now. People are starting to wonder why, obviously, and you wouldn't believe how crazy some of their guesses were."

"Wow. That's great. Exclamation point. Smiley face. How significant this information is to me. Tell me more, since I apparently should care about it. I might not be able to live any longer if I do not know about this guy I haven't met before and have no interest in meeting whatsoever."

"Some say he's an undercover spy. A model! An actor! A secret desert prince! Although he doesn't look Arabian, I think. A serial killer?"

"Wowza. I can't imagine why people are so excited about him being a serial killer. Shouldn't they be, I don't know, afraid? Like how normal people should be?"

"I don't really care what he is, but he makes such a _titillating _story, you know?"

"No, I don't know. This conversation seems pretty one-sided to me. Are you sure you're asking for my opinion?"

"He's perfect. Absolutely, positively, definitely, totally – come on, Bells! Think of more adjectives! Get out your thesaurus!"

"I've always thought that thesaurus was a kind of dinosaur," Harry commented offhandedly. Much to his despair, Angela still was not listening to him. "If you like him that much, why not approach him? Ask him out, I guess?"

"What?" For the first time in their conversation, Angela seemed to have heard her poor, long-suffering friend. "Oh no, I don't want him for my own. I think he'd be perfect as Edward Cullen's submissive."

Silence.

"Why am I still talking to you?" Harry asked wonderingly. He felt really sorry for the new star of Angela Weber's man-love fantasies.

_Note to self: never introduce Harry Potter to Weird Weber._

"Bella, you should definitely see Parking Lot Guy."

"_Parking Lot Guy?"_

"I don't know his name, okay? Everybody's too chicken to talk to him. I don't mind fantasizing from a distance."

The wizard checked his watch. It was still half an hour before his first class. He cursed.

"Bells, it's like Parking Lot Guy stepped out of my dreams! Pretty soon, he's going to step into Edward Cullen's arms. I imagined him a few days ago, can you believe it? Petit, blackhaired, devastatingly beautiful emerald eyes, mysterious aura…"

Wait a minute. Motorcycle? Blackhaired? _Green eyes?_

What the hell was he –

* * *

><p>"Harry!"<p>

Shite. Now everyone was looking at Bella in surprise. Didn't he say he would lie low for a while?

True to Angela's word, there was a blackhaired, green-eyed stranger of average height (not _petit, _thank you very much) with a motorcycle in the parking lot. He was definitely not a model nor a spy nor any outlandish identity that the Forkites came up with.

"Bella." Sunlight glinted off of Harry's shades.

_Not_-Bella wondered how Harry was able to do that, seeing as the skies were overcast.

"What the _hell_ are you doing here?"

His future self crossed his arms and leaned casually on Sirius' motorcycle, cool as it can be. Distantly, Bella could hear her classmates sighing dreamily.

"I came to visit my dear friend Bel-bel's new school, what else?"

"You think you're so cool, don't you?" 'Bell-bell' hissed poking at his chest when she got near enough. Frustratingly, he didn't topple with the bike. Hmm. Must've used a sticking charm. "Go away."

Her gossiping classmates, who were close enough to eavesdrop shamelessly, gasped in outrage.

"I just got here." The boy pouted.

Pouted like he was three or something.

Bella distinctly heard something thud, as if someone collapsed.

"Is this payback for the risotto thing?" she demanded.

"Do you really think so lowly of me?"

"Yes. Even lower."

Fangirls' outraged gasp #2.

"How cruel!" Harry declared, clutching at his chest like a heroine from a soap opera. Bella thought he just looked stupid. "_No, _it's not payback for the risotto thing. But to show you how much of a good friend I am, and that I have pure intentions, I came to bring you this." Harry retrieved something from a satchel that was hanging from his bike.

Bella's eyes widened, seeing what was in the other's hand. The thermos! How could she have forgotten?

"I stopped by at your place and noticed that you left your lunch on the kitchen table. I couldn't let my poor Bel-bel starve, could I?"

"_Oh, isn't he so thoughtful?" _Bella heard someone say.

_"Ooh, his accent sounds so marvelous!"_

"Okay, thanks," Not-Bella muttered grudgingly. "Now, will you _please _go away?"

"_Don't go, pretty boy!"_

Bella and Harry steadfastly ignored the last comment.

"All right. Since you asked so nicely. I shall go, for now." Before 'she' could dodge, Harry enveloped her in a hug and kissed her on the forehead.

More sighs, followed by distinct grumbles of jealousy.

The brunette scrubbed the back of her hand across her forehead disgustedly. Eww. Receiving a kiss from oneself was gross and extremely disturbing.

"See you soon, _Bel-bel_!" With a wink, future!Harry slung a leg over his motorbike and speeded off. Bella was the slightest bit impressed at how her future self managed to look coordinated without falling flat on his face, as usual.

She groaned. Her classmates would have a lot of questions to ask about 'Harry.'

_Thanks so much, Potter-from-the-future._

* * *

><p>The next day found Harry loitering around Forks High School parking lot again.<p>

He snickered, anticipating the dumbstruck look on his past self once they see each other so soon, as promised.

Okay, he lied to himself, big deal. It was totally payback for the risotto thing. He was one-upping himself for something himself had done. He didn't stop to pick out the irrationality of his statement. What can he say; Harry Potter was never known for his logic.

Additionally, he was helping himself out. Bella had been having a hard time at school with all the bad gossip about her, so if he caused enough trouble Bella would have good gossip about her, too. Yay, win-win for everyone!

People were already crowding around the parking lot. He made sure to lean more indolently, like the poses in Charlie's…magazines. The ones not in the living room, but under Charlie's bed. (No he wasn't _snooping._ He was _cleaning._ So what if he saw some questionable things and happened to take a further look?).

The boy silently thanked the wizard or witch who had invented the Sticking Charm, as he continued lounging on his beloved bike.

He ran a hand through his locks languidly, imitating Sullen Cullen when he was playing with his hair. He did that a lot which made it easy to copy. Harry tossed back his head and bared his neck, snickering when he heard sighs of admiration. He saw this in one of Angela's books (on second thought, maybe those weren't good reference materials). He favored his audience with one long look, blinking slowly to emphasize the greenness of his eyes and his lush eyelashes.

Two of the girls collapsed in a heap, while some guys were glaring at him.

_Go me! Go me! _Inner Harry cheered, pleased as punch. _I'm totally stealing your girls, mothaf**** bitches! _

Would it count as cradle robbing if he was seven or eight years older than them?

Maybe he should buy a leather jacket. Bella – the real one – always said that he would be much cooler if he "walked the walk and talked the talk;" whatever that meant. She said that he already had the badass motorcycle, the utra-cool shades and the mysterious aura – why not go all the way, right?

His Time-Turner self would probably scoff at him, and berate him for acting like a dork. It would be worth it, since he was enjoying the attention too much.

Harry preened, and gave one of his 'heated looks' again.

And stopped.

Edward Cullen was watching him with an unreadable expression on his face.

For some reason, Harry blushed.

He felt like he was caught doing something naughty.

_Farewell, BAMF!Harry. _His Inner Harry lamented. _It was nice knowing you._

Why the hell was Cullen staring at him like that, anyway? Couldn't Sullen Cullen cast his heated gazes another way?

Wait.

_Wait._

WTF? This scene was horribly familiar. The preening _uke_. The _seme_ not-so-subtly watching with lust in his eyes. Then followed by unspeakable things, things that still made him blush upon remembering.

Harry resisted banging his head on the handlebars. His bike just got a new paint job, and he hated to dent it.

Why on earth did he have to read _Love Injection? _Plus all the other stuff that Angela forced onto him? It was all Weber's fault. Now, he was reading too much into innocent things. Maybe Edward just happened to glance his way.

And why in the world did he cast himself as the bottom?

_Not really the biggest problem now, Potter._

He peeked. Cullen was still watching.

The redness on his cheeks still felt too hot.

_Look the other way, dammit._

He spent the next few minutes pretending to tinker with his bike. Risking a look, he was relieved to find that Edward was gone.

What happened next was not Harry's fault.

It was still debatable, though – since he reacted in an all too predictable fashion.

There was a nasty screech, a sound that quickly crescendoed and grated on the ears. It was followed by a blue van swerving to and fro, like a beleaguered wild beast attacking anything and everything that was blocking its way. The van was still gaining speed, and people were making a mad dash to avoid getting into its warpath.

The vehicle was heading surely towards Chevy.

(Bella had arrived, Harry noticed randomly).

Between the wild blue beast and his darling Chevy was Sullen Cullen.

Seriously? Of all the places to stand on, why did Cullen have to pick out the most dangerous one?

And who could blame Harry Potter, Boy-Who-Lived Extraordinaire, defeater of Voldemort, blah blah blah, for doing what he did next?

As Hermione said, Harry had a 'saving-people' thing.

Taking a deep breath, he apparated.

* * *

><p>I've noticed that in a lot of HPTwilight crossover fanfics, Angela is a witch/squib who knows Harry and his importance in the Wizarding World. This is kinda like my kudos to those fics. Plus, Harry had to be introduced to the concept of this kind of relationship, so I'm hitting two birds with one stone.

I hope the Van Incident was a surprise. I've been dying to write this scene.

For those who are puzzled about the unfamiliar words:

Yaoi - a genre of Japanese comics or manga that deals with explicit male relationships

Seme - the one doing the penetration, so to speak; often associated with the 'dominant' or top partner

Uke - opposite of seme; the bottom or submissive

I think the main difference of the Western perspective of homosexual relationships in fiction is that there's a concept of 'switching' (meaning that the people in a relationship cannot be boxed as strictly top or bottom). Usually, in yaoi, the roles are pretty much set - there's a top and there's a bottom. I have nothing against both views, but I got introduced to slash through yaoi manga, so I tend to cast characters in a set role. I'm not sure what happens in real life, though. I have gay friends, but I never ask them about it. If ever this fic goes in that explicitly slashy direction (which I doubt, seeing all the new restrictions and rules in ffnet), Harry will be the 'bottom.'

Haha, sorry for the long note. I might not be able to update soon, since I'm busy procrastinating and delaying my thesis,lol.

I hope you enjoyed the update! Please review if you did. Thanks! ¡Hasta la vista, mis amigos!


	10. Acronyms

Yay, an update so soon! I hope you're all glad about it. Thank you to those who reviewed and favorited!

Harry's gonna be so pissed when he learns that Edward didn't need saving from that vicious van. The van needed saving from _him._ It will happen in a few chapters or so.

Warnings: Angela's depraved fantasies (she's pairing our OTP in a thousand salacious ways before it was cool), language and Harry's usual craziness.

Enjoy!

* * *

><p>Chapter 10: Acronyms<p>

**_A day earlier…_**

"I don't understand why this chapter can't begin with a direct continuation of the previous one," Not-Bella grumbled, seeing his future self ride off to the non-existent sunset (it was half past eight in the morning) on his motorcycle.

He put on his best glare to scare off the rabid monsters disguised as his classmates. He had seen their kind before. He had even submitted an article to the publishers of the second edition of _Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them._

Fangirlicus crazilocus_, commonly known as 'Fangirl' is a different type of superhuman species. Fangirls come in various shapes and sizes, and it is impossible to identify them at the first sighting. Their vocal chords have somehow evolved to create a plethora of noises ranging from squeals, screeches, howls to cries. Any sound a Fangirl makes is fatal, with a preposterously incredible decibel threshold. These predominantly nocturnal (and on occasions when it benefits them, diurnal) creatures have long, runner's legs that enable them to hunt down their prey with ease. They tend to form packs, although intra- and inter-pack fighting are known to occur. If encountered in their natural habitat (which could be anywhere), proceed with extreme caution._

He never did receive a reply from the publishers, strangely enough.

Harry kind of understood why Harry appeared. Aside from the fact that he needed his polyjuice potion (it was his own fault for leaving the damn thing at home) and vengeance (he didn't believe for one second that this wasn't payback for the risotto thing; see Chapter 7 for reference), he was probably getting a bit stir-crazy.

_Dear Hermione._ He mentally composed. _This is what happens when you're not here to tell me how ludicrous my ideas are. I even had to look up the spelling of that word which makes me doubly depressed. While looking it up, I found some interesting sites about famous imposters. On a scale of Milli Vanilli to the Great Imposter Ferdinand Demara, how well do you think I'm doing?_

Oh, well. He had made his bed and now he had to lie in it.

Maybe he should buy another bed. The mattress springs on his current one were creaky. The actual one AND the proverbial one._  
><em>

"Isabella Marie Swan. You've been holding out on me, girl."

The maniacal glint in Angela Weber's eyes was not a good omen. The good thing was, this breed of fangirl was able to chase away the others. For now. Between her and the other _Fangirlicus crazilocus, _she was the lesser evil.

"I thought we were BFFAEA's!" Angela wailed, the sound frightening off the stubborn potential fangirls waiting to talk to him about their new prey called Harry. "B-doubleF-A-E-A's don't keep secrets from one another."

_You have no idea about the secrets I keep._

"BFF…AEA?"

"Best Friends Forever And Ever. Amen."

"Isn't it a bit too soon for that?" Harry asked tentatively. "Are we even friends? I get the feeling that you're recruiting me to be a member of your secret cult and then we'd have to sacrifice hot twinks to some obscure homo god. And then watch them have transcendently sublime sex or something."

"That too," she replied. "I'll appoint you as one of the High Priestesses and I'll be the Chief High Priestess in charge."

"Why don't I ever have normal friends?" Harry questioned the world, particularly the author of the train wreck of his story. "We can do _normal _stuff _normal_ people normally do in their _normal _lives. We'd be so _normal _that we'd be drowning in normalcy or normality, whichever word is _normally _used."

"The word 'normal' is starting to sound too freaky to me." Angela shuddered, holding her book out as if it were a talisman against the wickedness of it. "Stop saying it too much."

"And stop changing the subject. Spill! How do you know PLG?"

"PLG?"

"Parking Lot Guy is a bit of a mouthful, isn't it? So, P.L.G."

"PLG has a name." NO WAY was he going to accept abbreviation. Did the Wizarding World ever make an acronym of 'The Boy Who Lived' or 'The Chosen One?" Nope. He had never been called 'BWL' or 'TCO,' at least in canon.

"And I'm dying to know why you know it."

"Harry is a friend from Phoenix," he revealed reluctantly. Another ability of fangirls was excellent interrogation skills.

"_Is he your boyfriend?"_

He would strangle the next person who asked him that question.

"If I had a dollar for every person who asked me that, I would have…five dollars."

"Does that make me the fifth or sixth person?"

Not-Bella started to count in Dragon Latin for patience. It was a language he and Ron made up. It was a bit like Pig Latin but way cooler. The speaker would have to affix a use of dragon's blood after each scrambled sentence. Then, he or she would have to roar and flap his or her arms like a dragon's wings after every word spoken.

Hermione just said that he and Ron were idiots and that they looked like morons when they were speaking their secret language.

"_What on earth are you doing, Bells?"_

"Er…nothing?" Flap arms! Flap arms! Roar!

"And YOU wanted normal friends," she scoffed. "You wouldn't know what to do with them. Back to the main topic, please? My crazy BFFAEA was talking about the PLG, but she crudely sidestepped the subject and started doing some strange funky dance."

"Harry is a _friend._ Italicized for emphasis," the boy replied, opting to ignore the other things his friend said. Not-Bella knew how to pick his fights. He also knew that he would never win against a fangirl.

"Oh, good." Weber looked relieved, loosening the death grip on her poor book.

Wait. He shouldn't feel sorry for her books. They (especially the illustrations) gave him a complex. They made him feel insecure. Smaller.

_Dear Ron. I'm writing to you now because this is not something I ever would ask Hermione. Ever. Don't tell her about this or else she'd know about the spider and the lingerie. Merlin, I think I'm developing penis envy, but apparently it's only for girls, so maybe it's small penis syndrome. Have you ever looked at another guy's…stuff and thought, 'why is mine smaller?'_

On second thought, Ron was also the wrong person to ask. Ron was never the right person to ask for anything. This problem would have to be filed in Harry Potter's unresolved issues.

As if he needed more of those already.

"I'm glad that you and Harry aren't T.T., or 'together _together,'_ before you ask. This is a sign, Bells! Harry and Edward Cullen are TMFEO!"

"TMFEO?"

"Totally Made For Each Other. Do I have to explain all of my acronyms to you?"

Note to self: aside from telepathic communication, girls also liked to converse in obscure acronyms.

Harry reflected that normal girls would be relieved because they would have a shot at the guy, not because they wanted to make him the star of their live action gay porn.

"You don't even know if they're gay," he pointed out.

"I can write a fanfic out of it," Angela pondered. She seemed to be ignoring him again. "Two mysterious, lonely souls running away from dark pasts find each other when they least expect it. Very ominous and angsty. I'd call it, 'The Parking Lot.'"

"Park your idea the hell away from me."

"Tough one to convince, aren't you? What about this one? CEO Edward Cullen falls in love with wildly popular internet self-porn star 'Emerald,' not knowing that it was his shy, innocent computer-tech employee Harry. Revelation, sex and chaos ensue, not in that particular order. I'd call the story _Hard Drive_. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge. I'll be in my bunk because more than just computer drives are driven, if you know what I mean."

"Have you ever heard of the acronym HLOLARAWCHAWMP?"

"Catboy!Harry and Master!Edward? Title: _Neko no Nya, _or The Cat's Meow."

"I'm not into bestiality. You haven't corrupted me that much."

The 'yet' was unspoken between them.

"Aw, come on, Bells! He won't be a real cat, just the _kawaii neko mimi _and the fluffy tail! _Bishounens _like Harry need cat ears and tails. They'd go 'Nya, nya, feed me your milk, Master,' like a real goddamn cat!"

Harry wouldn't even try to decipher that.

"I don't ever want to know what you do to your pet cat."

"Leave my cat out of this, Swan. Next idea: Cullen-_sensei_ and honor student Harry asking for a grade raise? Title: _Extra Credit_."

"…"

"Mafia boss!Cullen and struggling college student Harry? Title: _Polish My Gun."_

NOE_. Oven cleaner. Roar! Flap arms. _WOT. _Spot remover. Roar! Flap arms. _EERHT. _Healing aid. _Roar! Flap arms…

"You're doing the crazy dance thing again. Are you having seizures? What about this: Single Father!cullen and Jailbait-Babysitter!Harry? Once the baby's asleep, they're under the sheets."

"_With the bloody baby?!"_

"What? No! I'm not into lolicon or shotacon. I did read something like that, though. The baby drugs his daddy's uke BF and has sex with him; and it somehow developed into a threesome with the dad."

"That is just _sick_."

"I know, right? I can't imagine a baby's _pee-pee _would be satisfying."

_Okay, you can do this, Harry. You can survive Weird Weber's Weirdness and come out unscathed. Just go back to counting in Dragon Latin again._

"You won't say no to this one, Bells! Naughty Nurse Harry needs a prostrate exam, and who better to give him it that Dr. Edward? Medical kink! Inappropriate use of medical equipment! Catheters, enemas and speculums!"

"I'll never look at doctors the same way again."

How many more minutes before his first class? He had never thought that he would actually look forward to it.

"Merman!Harry and Prince Edward? Please?"

"Too fishy."

"I suppose you've got a better idea?" Angela challenged, crossing her arms and leaning heavily on a locker.

Not-Bella paused in thought.

"Harry is a member of a secret society of humans with magical powers," he began. "Having survived a war that took everything from him, he wants to live a normal life."

The bespectacled girl nodded slowly, brows frowning in concentration. "Go on."

"He finds it while taking over the life of an unassuming young woman who came to live with her father in a wet, little town. At school, he becomes friends with a crazy girl who pairs him up with the resident hottie Edward Cullen, who also has big secrets of his own. They hook up, have lots of sex together, get married, and adopt children from Africa. They live happily ever after. The end."

Weber was silent, still staring at him with an unreadable expression on her face.

"I'll call it Harry-Hoaxing," he continued, warming up to his plot. It sounded a lot like 'Harry-Hunting' a game that Dudley and his lackeys loved to play. Harry loved that game. "You know, since you gave each of your storylines a title."

His companion didn't move from her position.

Not-Bella laughed nervously. Shite, did he say too much?

"Nah. Too unbelievable," she declared, sharing her head judgmentally.

"Too unbelievable? _Too unbelievable? _What about that Mermaid!AU and that Catboy!AU that you came up with? How are those plots more believable than mine?!"

"Don't be silly, Bells. Those were based on real life."

"My idea was based on real life."

Well. Except for the falling in love with Cullen, sex, marriage and babies part. Not gonna happen.

"Even if that was true, I bet you couldn't even write it," Angela said smugly.

"I bet you I can," Harry retorted hotly. "Wait. Wait a minute. You tricked me, you manipulative bitch!"

The 'manipulative bitch' in question smirked, and gave out her best evil laugh. If Harry wasn't so incensed at her, he would have been very impressed.

"Reverse psychology, Isabella," the wicked witch said, straightening out from her position. She stretched out her arms over her head and gave a big yawn. "You're easily suggestible, and because of it, you have to write me a story with lots of sex and manpain. Life is _good._ See you at lunch!"

The bell rang before Harry could say anything else.

* * *

><p><strong><em>The Next Day During and Just After the Van Incident (because Harry insisted on it)<em>**

Destination. Deliberation. Determination.

Or was it determination, deliberation, destination?

Harry always had a hard time remembering which came first.

Apparating was simple in theory. Visualization of intended endpoint. Gathering innate magic and willpower. Spin on the spot, and voila! Destination achieved. Quick, fast and convenient. No more waiting in lines and scrambling for vacant seats.

However, Apparation was still a dangerous way to travel. A million things can go wrong. Think about someplace other than your destination and you'd find yourself lost. Spin not fast enough and you'd get yourself splinched. Without enough of the three D's, your leg could find itself all the way to the Arctic Circle, and the polar bears would have a free dinner.

Harry didn't want the polar bears to eat his leg no matter how cute they were, so he determined, deliberated, and destinated (those were legit words in the Potter Unabridged Dictionary, first edition) as hard as he could to reach Edward Cullen, the blue beast, and his darling Chevy in time.

He didn't care if he screwed up the order of his D's.

There wasn't really enough time to enumerate properly.

Later, much later, Harry would realize that there were countless ways to stop the situation without being a self-sacrificial idiot. He could have stopped the blue van with a Freeze Charm. He could have used the Time Turner and warned the driver to drive more carefully. He could have repaired the van (or destroyed it, so the driver would have been forced to walk).

He could also have done _nothing_, but Harry would absolutely hate himself FAEA if anyone got hurt and he had the power to do something about it beforehand.

"_Oh my God!"_

"_Did you see that? Newbie's friend saved Cullen's ass!"_

"_Get Tyler out of the van!"_

Harry was lying on something extremely hard. He opened his eyes.

A wide, golden gaze met his blankly from an uncomfortably close distance.

"You saved me," Cullen breathed out, and the other boy was near enough to feel the breath tickling his ear.

"Is that a banana in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?" the wizard muttered back, not understanding why both of them were whispering.

He had never lied on top of another boy before (or another person, period). Not that Harry had a choice about it. Tyler's van, resembling nothing more than a crushed soda can, pinned both of them on the ground without much room to move around unless the vehicle was moved out of the way.

"You don't even know me," Edward continued wonderingly, as if he didn't hear Harry's snarky comment. Sigh. The Potter humor was always lost to these forky people.

Edward brushed a lock of black hair blocking Harry's eyes with his free hand. His other arm was wrapped around the body on top of him.

"Would you rather be crushed by Tyler's blue monster?" His heart was still trying to beat out of its ribcage, and he was sure that his companion felt it. They were chest-to-chest and groin-to-groin, after all. If he could feel Cullen's banana, Cullen could definitely feel his wildly throbbing organ.

Harry stifled a hysterical giggle. There were so many things wrong with those thoughts.

"You're bleeding," Edward frowned, his intent eyes focused on the gash on the boy's forehead.

Aw, shoot. Head wounds bled like a bitch.

"I must have-cracked my...head on-on the. Pavement," Harry groaned out with difficulty. Merlin, it felt like the van was crushing the air out of his lungs. "Or I must've-must've cracked it on you. Ch-christ, what are you…even made of? Ti-titanium?"

He carefully laid the uninjured part of his head on the other's shoulder (distantly, he noticed that Sullen Cullen was taller than his real body) because it was too much of an effort to keep it up. Much to his disgust, it now seemed more like they were cuddling, and Edward was the big spoon to Harry's little one. He couldn't bring himself to care right now because it hurt like hell all over.

"_You're bleeding."_

"Repeating it again won't make it stop bleeding, buddy."

Edward must have done something because Harry was starting to breathe a little better. His fingertips were speckled with Harry's blood, and he was looking at them with puzzlement and morbid curiosity.

"_Somebody call 911!"_

"Are you hurt?" Harry demanded. What was taking the rescue guys so long? Help, anyone? His personal bubble was being invaded! He wanted to get off from Cullen like yesterday. Wait. He wanted to get off _of _Cullen, not _from. _What was the right preposition to use so that his statement wouldn't sound like a badly-worded innuendo? It was hard to think when hundreds of unsynchronized drums were bashing his brains.

Cullen was rubbing his fingertips in contemplation. Harry prodded him (as best as he could in the small space).

On second thought, prodding someone who might be hurt was not such a good idea.

"Hmm...? No, I'm fine." He stilled, but the arms around Harry grew tighter.

"Mind-mind not suff-suffocating the person…who saved your so-sorry arse?" Harry gasped out. Cullen had the gripping power of a protective mama dragon. "'M not. Not your teddy bear."

Thankfully, the arm molesting him (he came to the conclusion that Emoboy was a closet pervert) became slack. He didn't remove it, though. What the actual fuck.

Things had gone from slightly awkward to extremely creepy. Just saying.

If he knew that he would be sandwiched between Edward Cullen and a vehicle-soda-can-thing, he would've stayed far away from FHS today.

Hmmm. Sandwich. His stomach grumbled in response, as if the word was Pavlov's bell inviting him to eat. Did that make Harry the hungry, salivating dog?

This time, Harry didn't bother to smother his hysterical giggle.

This situation called for it.

"I think you have a concussion," Edward said. With the hand not wrapped around the smaller boy, he gently lifted Harry's head so that he could peer better into the other's eyes.

"I probably got that from you, Titanium Man."

The screech of metal being lifted away drowned out whatever Cullen had to say about his hardness.

"Harry, Cullen, are you guys-ARGH, my virgin eyes."

Harry turned his head just enough to see Not-Bella catching them _in flagrante delicto. _

"Cullen, you bloody wanking pervert. What are you doing to my sweet and innocent Har-bear?"

'Sweet and innocent Har-bear' was in too much pain to protest his new moniker.

"What did I do?" Edward protested indignantly. "If you hadn't noticed, it is your friend who is on top of me."

"Duh, but your grabby octopus arms are all over him. Stop contaminating him! Who knows what germs you have? _Get off._"

"Bella, please stop making so much noise," Harry complained, wheezing. No matter how hard Edward was, the wizard realized how comfy he could be. Edward Cullen made a good mattress, and Harry refused to move. Emoboy should just lie there and take it, for that was the best he could do after the black-haired boy had risked life and limb for him.

"Harrikins! Are you all right?"

Not-Bella didn't look particularly concerned for her future self's well-being.

"Peachy keen, Bel-bel," Harry said through gritted teeth. Another wave of fresh pain rippled through him. The rescue team was taking its sweet time pulling away all the debris. "Wow, I've never felt better in my life."

Edward was carding the fingers of his free hand through the wizard's hair soothingly.

"I believe your friend is being sarcastic, Bella."

'Bella' looked at him blankly.

"No shit, Cullen." She turned to Harry. "Are you going to faint now?"

"I'm not gonna fuckin fai-"

Passing out in another guy's arms was probably not the manliest thing Harry Potter ever did. Not-Bella was probably keeping count of all the unmanly things he had done.

* * *

><p>When he came around, the first thing he noticed was the sterile, too-clean smell of disinfectants. He was familiar with it by now, thanks to six years of semi-permanent residency in Madam Pomfrey's infirmary.<p>

"_Ow."_

"He's awake!"

Harry opened his eyes halfway, catching a sight of Bella sitting at his bedside.

"Before you say anything, I didn't bloody faint. I _passed out. _Or I _lost consciousness. _If you want to be poetic about it, I was _abruptly swept into oblivion_. Not _faint_, you buggering wanker_._"

"How many fingers am I holding up?"

Not-Bella was holding up two especially rude fingers.

"Two. Fuck you too, Bells."

Bella snickered.

"Language, Harry. We're in polite company, you blooming twat." She pointed to the other figures in the room.

Edward Cullen was lounging on the only couch in the pastel-colored room, but he got up and sat on the chair next to Bella. Standing on the other side of the bed and perusing a clipboard was a man who was most likely his doctor.

"I'm dying, Bells." Harry flung himself on his bed as best as he could, given that he was wrapped in bandages at the moment. "I'm in a world of pain where seas are crested with waves of agony and the lands are made of a thousand aches. The air I breathe in is bleeding with hurt, and shards of suffering are raining down on the cracks of my skin. Insanity is my king, and injury rules by his side."

The boy got the feeling that the other people in the room was listening in on their conversation. It was hard not to in such a small area.

"Don't be melodramatic, Har-har. Are the drugs making you loopier than ever?"

Why couldn't she be more concerned about her other self?

"I'm in a hospital. Why am I in a hospital? Do you know what they_ do_ in this place?"

The wizard's eyes bugged out, visions and snippets of yesterday's conversation with Angela running through his mind. Merlin. Didn't Weber say something about doctors? The _catheter. The enema_. Rowena's left boob. _The-the specu-thingy. _

"Angela told me all about it," he continued, forgetting that the doctor and Edward were within hearing distance. "The staff members do naughty things to each other, and occasionally, patients participate. Injections aren't the only things penetrating, if you catch my drift. The doctors have this specu-thingy that…"

"The drugs_ did _make you loopier." Bella shook her head ruefully, making obnoxious tutting noises with her tongue. "I'm so sorry about him, Dr. Cullen. Harry hasn't been properly integrated in the civilized society."

She turned to Harry before the doctor could respond. "I told you not to take whatever Angela said seriously."

"I'm serious, Bells! I'm about to depart from the mortal realm. I leave darling Hedwig to you. Please take care of her and don't let her near the dust bunnies. Those are vicious creatures that would tear my love apart. My awesome motorcycle should be bestowed upon Mr. Kelekolio because we haven't apologized for traumatizing him yet. Please donate the clothes on my back to the Bleeding Hearts charity, if it exists. When I die, I give permission to harvest the organs from my body and transplant them to the people who are worthy to live."

"Harry –"

"I'd like to be buried in a garden so that my body, or what's left of it after all the harvesting and donating, could fertilize the pretty flowers. 'In my death, I give life.' Oh, that's a good one. Write it as my epitaph."

"You're not-"

"Before I leave this world, can you kiss my boo-boo? I heard it makes a person feel better."

"What are you, five? You're not gonna die, so stop sounding like a Lifetime channel movie on crack."

"I-I'm not?"

"If you die on me now, I'd put something shitty on your epitaph like, 'Died because he forgot to breathe,' or 'Bludgeoned to death by llamas,' or _worse_ 'Died as a twenty-five year old virgin.'"

"Your friend is correct, young man," Dr. Cullen interrupted, before Harry could launch himself like a torpedo to his blabbermouth self.

"Harry, please. Please call me Harry, Doctor."

"Well then. Harry, I'm pleased to inform you that you're in good health and you're not going to die anytime soon. Plenty of time to lose your maidenhood." The doctor's eyes looked up from the clipboard, a smirk in place. "If you're still worried about impending demise, we can try eliminating it right now. I'm certain there's a speculum in the other room."

Edward and Bella snickered. Traitors.

"My..m-m-y-my wh-I'm not a maiden!" he protested loudly.

The doctor's eyes were twinkling madly, so he was probably pulling Harry's leg.

"I'm Dr. Cullen," the man greeted with a warm smile. He dropped Harry's chart on the bedside table. "You need not worry of your virtue, young man. I'll be taking care of you with the purest of intentions. My son Edward can vouch for my reputation."

"My father's not a pervert." The bronze-haired teenager shot an offended glance at Bella. "Neither am I."

"What was I supposed to think earlier, Cullen? You were all over him-brushing his cheek, petting his hair -"

"Break it off, guys," Harry said wearily, before this situation could get any more humiliating.

"From what my son has told me, he has not expressed his gratitude yet." Dr. Carlisle Cullen (as his nametag proclaimed), frowned disapprovingly at his erring progeny.

"Hello, Harry," Edward said softly. He leaned forward from his seat, planting the palms of his hands on his knees. "We haven't been introduced yet. I'm Edward Cullen. And – thank you. For earlier."

"Don't mention it. It's nice to meet both of you. My apologies for earlier, Doctor. I'd shake your hands, but mine is rather tied up at the moment." His arm was in a sling which explained why he couldn't move it.

"Ah, yes. You broke your arm rather badly, so we had to put it in a cast." Dr. Cullen picked up the clipboard and flipped some pages. "Two of your ribs got cracked. We also had to stitch up a nasty gash on your head. It would be tender for a while, but nothing to worry about. However, we still have to monitor you for signs of concussion."

"The ribs explain why I feel like a human burrito."

Cullen Sr. chuckled.

"We wrapped you up none too tightly, so I hope you'd be a comfy little burrito."

"Toasty and warm, Doctor. Just the way I like it." He smiled. "Are Edward and that guy in the van okay?"

"Thanks to your bravery, no one got hurt."

"Except you, Harbear," Bella cut in.

'_I put a Shield Charm around Tyler so that he wouldn't be hurt upon impact.'_ Bella informed him telepathically.

'_Great. Why couldn't you have put one on me, too?' _He shot back viciously to her mind and was the slightest bit gratified to see her wince at the loudness of his thought.

'_You know how wonky our magic has been ever since we arrived in the States, remember? That's why we haven't been using it that much. I think the magical ambience here is a lot different from the one back home. Wilder and unrefined.'_

Out loud, Harry said, "Why aren't you and Edward at school?"

"Classes got dismissed early and everybody from school is at the hospital right now. They're talking about you, you know."

_Great. _The fangirls were already beginning to swarm. Abandon all hope of survival.

"How soon can I leave, Dr. Cullen?"

"I'm sorry, Harry." Edward's father withdrew a small torch from his pocket and flashed the light into his patient's eyes carefully. Nodding to himself, he turned it off with a pleased expression. "So far so good, but you might need to stay for a few more days."

Harry groaned.

"Are there family members or friends you'd like to inform about what happened?"

Bella became unnaturally still, something that the Cullens picked up immediately.

Harry thought about it.

Brown, bushy hair and soft caramel eyes. A gaggle of redheads with the same goofy smile. A small wolfcub with perpetually changing hair and two missing front teeth.

"I'm afraid not, Dr. Cullen," the boy breathed out, avoiding everybody's eyes. It was getting hard to breathe, but he knew that it wasn't because of the bandages.

Bella picked up his uninjured hand and squeezed it comfortingly. He smiled back wanly. Both of their hands were freezing cold.

"You have me, don't you? We're BFFAEA's, right?"

The wizard rolled his eyes.

"Yes, I do. Dork."

"Dick."

"Bi-"

Dr. Cullen cleared his throat.

"I'll be leaving you three to chat while I check on the other patients. Absolutely no fighting," he reprimanded, frowning at the trio's contrite expressions. "Harry, do you need anything before I leave?"

"No thanks, Dr. Cullen."

"I'll be checking on you soon."

The two Cullens shared a meaningful yet unreadable look before the older one broke it and made to leave.

Dr. Cullen was really nice, Harry reflected. So far, he hadn't seen any 'inappropriate usage of medical equipment.'

"Wait, Dr. Cullen!" Harry called out, just as the doctor placed his hand on the doorknob.

Harry had never been confined in a muggle hospital before. The Dursleys never took him to one, even when they roughed him up a bit too much. What he knew about hospitals came from late night shows, Angela's comics, shady websites and kid's cartoons. They probably weren't reliable sources, but they all had one thing in common.

"Can I have a lollipop?" he blurted out, face flaming.

Bella buried her head in her hands, shoulders quivering in silent laughter. Edward was smiling faintly, and his father chuckled again, apparently understanding why Harry asked for one.

Dr. Cullen had nice chuckles, Harry thought. They were sincere and not spiteful in the least. If sounds could hug, Dr. Cullen's laughter would be the biggest and warmest one of all.

"I'll see what I can do, _little boy_," Dr. Cullen teased lightly, closing the door gently behind him.

Awkward silence. And then,

"I could kiss your boo-boo better if you like," Edward offered. "Since Bella doesn't want to."

Harry snorted. If he didn't know any better, he would have said that Cullen was being serious about it.

* * *

><p>A bit shorter than the previous chapter, but I hope you still enjoyed it! Please review if you did. Thank you!<p> 


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